Danielle Fishel wins the mother of the year award for her patience.
The Boy Meets World alum has been caught up since at least mid-September in the whirlwind that is Dancing With the Stars season 34. Though she was eliminated last Tuesday after eight weeks of competition, Fishel garnered a legion of fans won over by her sunny style and radical transparency around her struggles. One viewer much closer to home, however, wasn’t so impressed.
Fishel received an alarming call from her 6-year-old son Adler’s school while the competition was still in full swing, the Boy Meets World star recounted on Monday’s new episode of the rewatch podcast Pod Meets World.
“We had a little bit of an issue today with Adler, and I wanted to talk to you about it,” Fishel said her son’s teacher opened, considerably downplaying what they were about to reveal.
Adler had not only told his teacher that his father, Jensen Karp, had “inputted a lot of information on the computer wrong and then gotten fired,” but also, “My mom is dead.”
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Fishel clarified that not “a single word” Adler spoke about Karp was true, and clearly, she is still alive and quick-stepping.
“The teacher was like, ‘Well, why don’t you tell me more about that?’ Because she didn’t want to shut him down,” Fishel continued. “He kept going, but then at some point just said, ‘Well, maybe that’s not true,’ and then moved on.'”
That was just the start of the DWTS-related challenges in the Fishel-Karp household. Despite requiring physical therapy for a dance-related injury, Fishel decided to take that week off to pick Adler up from school, where they got in a blowout fight. “Everything just came out,” Fishel recalled.
“He bursts into tears and says, ‘I hate this job. Why did you take this job? All you do is dance, dance, dance, dance. That’s all you do! You never get to hang out with me and Keaton anymore. I want you to quit. Are you going to quit or not?'” Fishel remembered. She patiently explained to Adler that “Mommy is not going to quit her job” for “a couple reasons.” One, she “really loves it,” two, it isn’t forever, and three, “I made a commitment.” Adler continued to rage, from the car into the house and straight into this bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
Fishel was eventually able to coax Adler to admit that his fib was merely a child’s angry rationalization, born out of hurt, of their beloved parent suddenly receding from their daily life. After a loving chat with her and Karp’s 4-year-old, Keaton, Adler called Fishel to his room with a conciliatory, “Mom?” Fishell recalled. “I go around the corner and he goes, ‘I’m sorry I said all of that stuff,’ and I gave him a hug. Anyway, we’re still working through it!”
Fishel’s performance across two months of competition on Dancing With the Stars reads even stronger after factoring in the turbulence she was weathering at home.
In addition to sustaining a hamstring tear in her right leg while dancing, exacerbated by a deep tissue massage on the affected area that ravaged a swath of blood vessels, Fishel also opened up about fighting through doubt due to her cancer diagnosis in 2024.
“I have remained incredibly positive since my diagnosis. I’m feeling really proud, and I don’t often feel that way,” she noted before her final dance last week. “After having cancer last year and wanting to accomplish more of my dreams,” Fishel described that parting contemporary routine with parter Pasha Pashkov as “a big gift.”
You can listen to the full episode of Pod Meets World above.
