Actors Will Friedle and Rider Strong are sharing their support for their former “Boy Meets World” co-star, Danielle Fishel, as she continues on her “Dancing With the Stars” journey.
On their iHeart “Pod Meets World” podcast Saturday, Friedle and Strong defended Fishel’s efficiency on the Oct. 28 Halloween-themed episode of “DWTS,” during which she and companion Pasha Pashkov danced a Viennese waltz to Woman Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With a Smile.”
Fishel and Pashkov obtained 33 out of 40 factors for the quantity, only one level greater than Elaine Hendrix and Alan Bersten’s rating. Hendrix, an actor whose credit embrace “The Parent Trap” and “Dynasty,” was sidelined by a rib damage earlier than the published, requiring judges Derek Hough, Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli to evaluate her rehearsal footage in lieu of a sophisticated efficiency.
After acknowledging their views come “with the bias of having a friend on the show,” Friedle and Sturdy nonetheless accused Hough, Inaba and Tonioli of judging Fishel too harshly.
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“Carrie Ann has her favorites,” Friedle stated. “She’ll have two or three that, no matter what they do ― they could walk on the stage, trip, hit their face ― and she’d be like: ‘You tried so hard, 9!’ And then Danielle does the best thing where she’s doing triple flips, and she’s like: ‘You’ve got to hold your shoulders different, too,’ and it’s like: What the fuck?”
Sturdy echoed these sentiments, noting: “I held back the anger. I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. At this point, it’s starting to feel like a personal vendetta.”
Elsewhere within the podcast, the 2 actors prompt Fishel was being held to “a higher standard” as a result of her portrayal of the teenage Topanga Lawrence on “Boy Meets World,” which aired from 1993 to 2000, stays etched on “DWTS” judges’ minds.
“This is a mother, this is somebody who is 45 years old,” Sturdy stated. “I think that because she looks so young and they still associate her as Topanga, they think of her as, like, a young American sweetheart. And that’s not really fair.”
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He went on to notice: “There’s a little bit of, like, you know: ‘You’ve been a star all your life, you’ve been the center of attention for a long time,’ and I think that’s working against her.”
Happily for Fishel, she and Pashkov had been protected after Tuesday’s episode, and the pair are set to compete on this week’s present. Friedle and Sturdy’s protection of their podcast co-host and former co-star, nevertheless, comes weeks after one other “DWTS” Season 34 contestant, Hilaria Baldwin, prompt she’d been “bullied” off the present after being eradicated on the Oct. 9 episode.
Baldwin, who’s the spouse of actor Alec Baldwin, didn’t single out any of the “DWTS” judges in her complaints, however nonetheless blasted the “very coordinated, strategic bullying” she obtained from the present’s followers whereas she was a contestant.
“There’s a big problem online right now. It’s a big problem,” she stated on the present’s official podcast following her elimination. “We don’t see each other. We make enemies out of each other. And I’m talking about my fellow women. Women’s inhumanity to women. We need to stop. We will never get anywhere.”
Hearken to the Nov. 1 episode of “Pod Meets World” right here. Friedle and Sturdy’s feedback on Fishel’s “DWTS” rating will be discovered across the 3:47 mark and, later, the 39:09 mark.
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