Melissa Joan Hart and Will Friedle look back at their 'googly eyes' teenage romance
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Former '90s sitcom stars Melissa Joan Hart and Will Friedle had a whirlwind romance that somehow managed to evade the pages of teen magazines.
Hart made an appearance on Friedle's Boy Meets World rewatch podcast Pod Meets World earlier this week, where it was revealed that she had a short-lived teenage romance with Friedle. "He was, like, my heartthrob," she told Friedle's former costars and podcast hosts Danielle Fishel and Rider Strong. "All my books said 'I heart Will' when I was, like, 14."
The courtship began at Hart's arcade birthday party. "I was with you for, like, your 14th birthday or 15th," Friedle, now 47, recalled. "Remember we went to some place where it was those big tanks you could drive or shoot the tennis balls at the other? That was us there. We went out for that, and we were making googly eyes at each other. And by the end of the night, we were 'dating.'"
Friedle said it was a "whirlwind romance," and couldn't remember if the two ever kissed. "Did we even kiss?" he asked Hart, now also 47, who replied, "I don't know, maybe." Clearly, the romance was "memorable," she joked.
ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Melissa Joan Hart and Will Friedle
Hart noted that she's recently been rediscovering sentimental items from her teenage years, including a notebook adorned with Friedle's first name. She said, "At first I was like, 'Who's Will?' And then, something came to me where I was like, 'Oh my God! I know who that is!'"
Hart made a memorable guest appearance as her Sabrina the Teenage Witch character in a season 5 crossover episode of Boy Meets World back in 1997. Titled "The Witches of Pennbrook," the episode followed Jack (Matthew Lawrence) as he falls for a girl named Millie (played by another notable '90s sitcom star, Candace Cameron Bure), whom Friedle's Eric discovers is a witch, putting the two friends and roommates at odds.
Astrida Valigorsky/Getty; David Becker/Getty Melissa Joan Hart; Will Friedle
Elsewhere in the podcast interview, Hart revealed she was nearly fired from Sabrina after she posed in her underwear for a Maxim photoshoot. It was spurred by the magazine's cover line, "Sabrina, your favorite witch without a stitch," with accusations that she violated her Archie Comics contract stating that she "would never play the character naked." The news first reached her at the premiere of her 1999 movie Drive Me Crazy.
"While I'm at the party, my lawyer shows up and goes, 'You did a photoshoot for Maxim magazine?'" Hart recalled. "I'm like, 'Yes, I did.' They're like, 'Well, you're being sued and fired from your show, so don't talk to the press, don't do anything.'" Ultimately, though, they "had no ground to stand on," Hart said, and she was in the clear after she penned an apology letter.
Listen to Hart's podcast interview above.
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