Yahoo News Trina McGee reveals why Angela was absent from the Boy Meets World series finale
Boy Meets World may have ended 22 years ago, but for Trina McGee some wounds are still fresh.
On a recent episode of Pod Meets World, a podcast hosted by BMW alums Danielle Fishel, Will Friedle, and Rider Strong, the hosts welcomed McGee who, for three seasons, played Strong's onscreen girlfriend Angela Moore. McGee revealed some of the biased treatment she received on set — including why she was absent from the series finale.
First appearing in season 5 as a recurring character, McGee's Angela Moore began dating Strong's Shawn Hunter, eventually becoming a series regular. In the second to last episode, Angela left with her father for Europe, making her the only main character not in the series finale.
ABC Ben Savage, Danielle Fishel, Rider Strong, and Trina McGee in 'Boy Meets World'
"I was told, in kind of a weird, off-handed way by a very important person, that you guys all went to [showrunner] Michael Jacobs, and you said, 'We don't want her in the last episode. She's somehow taking our light,' was the gist of it," McGee said. "I was told that after I shot what was the show before the last episode, which was called 'Angela's Ashes' when I left."
"I was under the impression that y'all got together and did not want me in the last show, for some reason I was going to take some shine or something to that effect," McGee continued. "That was really hurtful to me for a long time."
McGee referred to the incident as "ground we have not covered," and Fishel, Friedle, and Strong were truly surprised to hear her admission. They were quick to then debunk that version of events.
"Can we say for the record, Trina, that never happened," Friedle said. "That's not competitiveness, that's sociopathy. This pisses me off. This is next level."
"I believe you. I can tell by your reactions," McGee said. "I have had that in my head for so long, and I've never watched that show. I've always felt like, ugh… That hurt me a long time."
Fishel and McGee agreed that the time they spent not talking to one another, out of some shared sense of animosity, was a waste. "We could've helped each other," they both said.
Emily Assiran/Contour/Getty 'Boy Meets World' stars Will Friedle, Danielle Fishel, Rider Strong, Trina McGee, and Matthew Lawrence
McGee also noted a few other instances in which her experience on Boy Meets World was markedly different from her white co-stars', such as when she was asked to turn down her Blackness.
"Coming from Black sitcoms, I always had to have like a Black meter," McGee joked, adding that on BMW, her "Black meter was probably down to a two," but on one episode she had "slipped up" and "was at about a nine."
"Michael comes over to me and his note was, 'Hey Trina, just turn down the Telma Hopkins about eight notches,' " she said, referencing the Family Matters actress. "I knew exactly what he was talking about and I did... There are so many things you guys are so lucky you didn't have to think about."
Among the other things McGee's costars didn't have to think about included an op-ed ghost-written for them about race relations on the show or a random Aunt Jemima reference. McGee recalls the op-ed, for the Daily News written by her husband and her publicist but credited to the actress, defending the show's decision not to address the fact that Angela and Shawn were in an interracial relationship.
"I was very confused at the time about whether to talk about it or not — I had two realms of thinking: my job and mankind," McGee said.
While McGee acknowledged that she didn't want to always carry the weight of being "The Black Girl on the Show," if given the chance again, she would have written the opposite article — referencing a rebuttal in the News from actress Lorraine Toussaint, "who said, no, you must acknowledge that these are two different races getting together."
Emily Assiran/Contour/Getty 'Boy Meets World' stars Rider Strong and Trina McGee
Some 12 years older than Fishel, McGee was in a different phase of her life and often felt that disconnect between her and her costars, whom, she admits, she initially thought were "snots" and "really privileged kids who didn't know."
"We were!" Friedle agreed.
And even though McGee was accustomed to and comfortable in all- or majority- white spaces, she often had to "hold my tongue" — but there was one time in particular which she didn't, an incident with Friedle. McGee had come out of her dressing room wearing a red scarf and Friedle made the automatic association with Aunt Jemima.
"So right before I walked on for my part, I walked by and went, 'Love your syrup,' and walked on to the set, thinking 'Boom, zing! Just got her for her hat,' " Friedle said. After his scene, McGee confronted Friedle about the comment and he was completely shocked and "shaken." Friedle credits that moment with changing his life.
"That moment was the moment where I was like, you can't just say stuff," Friedle said. "You can't just throw things out there, because you think it's funny and walk away. You could be hurting people because you think it's funny."
"The real tragedy in all of it is the years that went by that we didn't talk about it because I really kept it," McGee said. "But that's not my entire experience on the show. It's not a racial issue. It's more of a trust, friendship, at the time where we were, and you guys kinda being snot kids."
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