Boy Meets World Star Danielle Fishel Reveals Breast Cancer Diagnosis

Fishel says that the cancer was caught "very, very early" and her prognosis is very good.

Danielle Fishel, former star of Boy Meets World and now co-host of Pod Meets World, revealed on the latest episode of the show that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer. She characterized the diagnosis as "stage zero" and "very, very, very early," reassuring her audience that she would be fine. According to the star, her first instinct was to stay quiet about her diagnosis, but she decided to go public because that might be useful to her audience, whom she encouraged to get screened for cancer, in the hopes of catching anything similarly early. 

"To be specific, just because I like too much information all the time, I was diagnosed with high-grade DCIS with micro-invasion. And I'm going to be fine," Fishel said (via TVLine). "I'm having surgery to remove it. I'm going to be on some follow-up treatment. I've had to make a lot of decisions over the last couple of days."

She added, "The only reason I'm sharing it is because, if you've ever had those thoughts in your life where someone close to you is diagnosed with cancer, somewhere in your mind you think, 'What would I do if this were me? What would I do in this situation?' And for some reason, I had always thought I would suffer in silence. I would not tell anyone. I would tell only my small, small group. And then I would just suck it up. And then when I'm on the other side of it, then I would tell people, 'Here, I've gone through this journey and here's what I did.' As I've gotten older… I've tried to learn from the experiences of others because I don't think I did that enough when I was younger… but the place you have the most to learn from is at the very beginning of a story or in the very messy middle of the story."

In 2022, Danielle Fishel, Will Friedle, and Rider Strong launched Pod Meets World, a podcast devoted to rewatching their iconic 1990s sitcom Boy Meets World in which they interview actors and producers involved with the series as well as share their own, behind-the-scenes memories.

What is Boy Meets World About?

Boy Meets World ran for seven seasons between 1993 and 2000 on ABC. The series followed Cory Matthews (Ben Savage) and his friends and family as he grows through childhood to adulthood, chronicling his everyday life. The series also starred William Daniels, Friedle, Lily Nicksay, Betsy Randle William Russ, Strong, and Fishel. The series got a follow up series in 2014 with a similar premise, Girl Meets World, this time following the life of Cory's daughter, Riley.