Girl meets boy! Danielle Fishel found her happily ever after in husband Jensen Karp — and their love story is still going strong.
While many fans shipped the Boy Meets World alum with one of her several former costars, including Ben Savage and Rider Strong, Fishel never thought of either one as more than a childhood crush.
“I had a crush on Rider. He was so smart and … one of my favorite things about Rider — and it continues to this day — Rider is very effusive,” Fishel confessed during an August 2022 episode of “Pod Meets World,” which she cohosts with Strong and Will Friedle. “He will tell you how he feels and he’s very free with his compliments, but he doesn’t throw them out willy-nilly. When he compliments you, it is thoughtful, it has meaning, and you can tell it’s coming from a very real place.”
Strong, who played Shawn Hunter on the Disney Channel series alongside Fishel’s Topanga Lawrence, was taken aback by the revelation.
“That’s not true. That’s not true, you never told me that. You saved that for 30 years?” he asked. “So … I was your first celebrity crush. [It was] Jonathan Taylor Thomas and me. You really had the teen magazine thing covered way through the ’90s.”
The Girl Meets World alum later told listeners that she also tested out her chemistry with Savage, who played her TV love interest Cory Matthews for seven seasons in the ‘90s and three seasons of the 2000s spinoff.
“[Ben and I] looked at each other after all these weeks of playing boyfriend and girlfriend [and] all the kissing and we just looked at each other like, ‘Should we just go to dinner one night?’” Fishel recalled. “It was very quickly into the meal that we realized this was a hard boundary to jump. … it was very obvious that no, what we had was just a very fun, non-romantic [connection].”
The Arizona native eventually started dating people outside of her Disney bubble, including Tim Belusko, whom she wed in October 2013. However, the pair’s marriage was short lived and they called it quits in March 2016.
Fishel found love for a second time with Karp, whom she was first linked to in June 2017 after the Unleashed producer shared a sweet snap of her with a cat via his Instagram page.
The twosome said “I do” in November 2018 after getting engaged earlier that year.
“I would say that it is medium and I am going to say that it’s not traditional,” Fishel exclusively told Us Weekly of the wedding plans in October 2018. “It’s a little bit quirky, just like we are.”
She added: “I am [on] cloud nine. He is the most amazing partner anybody could ever hope for. And so I’m just thrilled. I’m really looking forward to building a life with him.”
On the couple’s one-year anniversary, Karp gushed over his wife and the life they had built together.
“One year ago today, I married the greatest person on earth. I know people say stuff like that all the time, and it’s hyperbole — but I truly believe she is. She has made every day brighter, every joke funnier and every hug more comfortable,” the filmmaker wrote via Instagram in November 2019. “We’ve been through so much in the past year, including welcoming our young Marv Albert into this world, and yet you’ve been able to take on the job of mother with even more passion and highly detailed Navy SEAL-like precision than I could have expected. You’re my partner, my best friend and my wife for one year already! Love you very much.”
The pair, who share two sons, have continued to sing each other’s praises since tying the knot. On Fishel’s birthday in May 2020, Karp called her the “greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Scroll down to relive Fishel and Karp’s relationship from the beginning: