5 Surprising Revelations From Boy Meets World Actress Danielle Fishels Memoir The Holly

Danielle Fishel‘s Normally, This Would Be Cause for Concern: Tales of Calamity and Unrelenting Awkwardness is surprisingly true to its title.

The actress, best known for her role as Topanga in Boy Meets World (which she is currently reprising in the Disney spinoff Girl Meets World), has penned a collection of goofy young-adult anecdotes chronicling her journey from suburban SoCal to the height of ’90s young Hollywood, largely punctuated by public pratfalls, shopping sprees gone wild and gay boyfriends, not to mention — *spoiler alert* — farting husbands.

Here are five of the best (and sometimes painful) moments from her new memoir, out this week.

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She blew her first audition for Boy Meets World.

Fishel speed-talked her way through her first audition for the part of Topanga and was subsequently cast in a lesser role. Luckily, the girl who did get Topanga was unable to take notes from the director after their first rehearsal so they let her go and Fishel auditioned again, finally nabbing the part.

The better half of “Cory and Topanga” only cared about “Brenda and Dylan.“

Though their daughter was the star of one hit teen show, Fishel’s parents decided she wasn’t mature enough to watch another: Beverly Hills 90210. Fishel relished the days when she attended real school (instead of on-set tutoring) so she could catch up on all the 90210 gossip at the lunch table. “I mean, I was 12! Did they think I was some kind of child or something?” she exclaims, as only Topanga would.

Fishel was the first to witness Ben Affleck’s superhero skills.

Affleck gave his first Batman audition for Fishel — in a way. When the actress once fell down at a Halloween party, she was scooped up by a handsome stranger who appeared out of thin air to save her from public humiliation. She barely had time to register it was Baffleck (noticing first that he was just “incredibly, ruggedly, mind-bogglingly handsome”) before he disappeared again — as caped crusaders are wont to do.

Yes. Ben Savage was her first.

Though they never actually dated in real life, Ben Savage was Fishel’s first kiss – onscreen and off. Both were incredibly nervous (“I looked over at Ben, and he had gone completely white,” she recalls). Luckily, the young naifs nailed it and “went on to kiss almost every week for the next seven years.” (Savage did tell THR‘s Off the Cuff podcast that he and Fishel went on a real date once, but he didn’t know it was a date at the time, and therefore blew it.)

And Lance Bass was (almost) her last.

Before Fishel met her husband, Lance Bass was the “one who got away.” That’s right, Lance Bass, the former *NSYNC member who is now openly gay. The two met while taping a TGIF live special in 1998. Bass asked for Fishel’s number but then shied away from making the first move, so his bandmate Justin Timberlake telephoned Fishel and pretended to be Bass until he finally worked up the nerve to jump on the phone himself. For their first date Bass took Fishel to a Celine Dion Christmas special taping. “Perhaps that should have been my first sign that he was gay?” she writes. When he eventually broke up with her without apparent reason, it was Fishel’s mom who finally broached the topic. “Do you think there’s any possibility that Lance is gay?” she asked her daughter. A few years later Bass came out to Fishel and has remained her GBF ever since.

Normally, This Would Be Cause for Concern: Tales of Calamity and Unrelenting Awkwardness by Danielle Fishel (Gallery Books, 213 pages, $24.99)

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