Danielle Fishel left Candace Cameron Bure’s “jaw on the floor” when she opened up about a Boy Meets World storyline that addressed the cast’s weight gain.
Bure recently joined Fishel and her Pod Meets World cohost Rider Strong, where the trio reflected on the “painful” and “awkward” experience of being a teenagers in the public eye. Fishel pointed to an incident in which her weight was written into an episode of Boy Meets World.
“They called me into the office to tell me they were going to [do it],” Fishel said, adding that her then-costar, Will Friedle, was involved in the plotline too. “It wasn’t really like they asked. They just kind of said, ‘We just want you to know… Obviously you guys have gained a little bit of weight. So we’re going to write an episode about it. And here’s what it’s gonna be. It’s gonna be really funny.’”
Bure was shocked: “Do you see my jaw on the floor right now?” she responded. “What?”
Fishel continued, “I remember that being the hardest part for me was that meeting, because Will very much was like, ‘Oh, yeah. I’m totally fine with it.’ I know now he was very insecure, and it was really painful and painful for him.”
She added that as she didn’t know about Friedle’s insecurity at the time, seeing him accept it so quickly pushed her to do the same, despite having reservations.
“I had been aware that I had gained weight, but I was still you know, I was a size 4,” Fishel said. “And so, I remember thinking, ‘Wow, these people think I’ve gained enough weight that we have to write an entire episode about my weight gain.’”
Bure could relate to Fishel’s story, as one of the child stars of Full House, and pointed to her early teen years as one of the toughest periods of filming.
“That’s when girls really change,” she pointed out. “I think that, for me, 15, 16, and then having episodes, like, talk about, your weight.”
Bure noted that she was “always the chubby cheeked girl,” and while she now knows that she was just “a normal, average girl,” fan encounters often left her worrying about her weight.
“You meet people, and they’re always, like, ‘You’re so much thinner in person,’” she continued, “And you’re just like, is that all people see? Do they just see my chubby cheeks? And so of course, as a teenager, you feel that insecurity whether you’re on television or not. But it gets magnified when you are.”
Bure, who spent eight seasons of the hit sitcom as the eldest Tanner sister, DJ, then reflected on a season 4 episode that put body image issues in the spotlight.
“Kimmy (Andrea Barber) and I were going to a pool party and I didn’t wanna put a bathing suit on, so I did a crash diet to try to lose weight in a week so I wouldn’t feel bad about myself in a bathing suit,” Bure recalled of the episode. “And then passed out at the gym because I wasn’t eating.”
Bure said that while the episode wasn’t entirely a surprise, it still came with loaded feelings.
“They actually talked to my mom and dad and they talked to me and said, ‘Would you feel comfortable if we wrote an episode like this?’ And I was like, ’Yeah, sure,’” she said. “But when you’re in it and doing it, it feels a little awkward.”
Bure, meanwhile, was consulted before her weight was addressed in her series. She shared that following DJ’s weight loss episode, she lost 20 pounds before the next season began filming.
“I came in [having lost] 20 pounds, but they thought it was so great,” she said. “And they were like, ‘Oh, on the opening titles, why don’t we have you on an exercise bike, like, just to promote that?’ And looking back, I don’t think that was bad, I mean I really put a lot of hard work and effort into losing 20 pounds.”
On Monday, Bure shared a clip from the podcast to Instagram, thanking Strong and Fishel for inviting her on the show. Referencing their conversation, she added, “What I would give to go back and give 15 year old Candace a BIG HUG.”
