Boy Meets World salaries revealed in new book: Ben Savage scored 'huge pay increase,' Danielle Fishel snagged $30k an episode, while Rider Strong got 'completely screwed'

More than two decades after Boy Meets World went off the air, actor Rider Strong is still bitter about being 'completely screwed' when the show's headliner Ben Savage scored a 'huge pay increase.' 

Strong, 46, starred as floppy-haired bad boy Shawn Hunter, the best bud of Savage's titular character Cory Matthews, on 158 episodes of the classic sitcom, which aired from 1993 to 2000 on ABC.

The actor and podcaster now claims a lack of cast solidarity during contract negotiations for the final season led to pay disparity, according to Book Meets World: The Definitive Inside Story of Hit Sitcom Boy Meets World, a new narrative history of the series that hit shelves on Tuesday, November 10.

'I was already in college, and I didn't want to do the show anymore,' Strong shared in the book he co-authored with co-stars Danielle 'Topanga' Fishel and Will 'Eric' Friedle, with an assist from Variety journalist Emily Longeretta.

Instead of seizing the opportunity to negotiate a more lucrative deal – or quitting the show to actually focus on his education – Strong 'misread' his contract and thought he was already 'locked in' for Season 7.

According to Strong, show creator Michael Jacobs verbally strong-armed him and declared: 'Okay, so we're just thinking about adding a year that you already thought was there, so we're good.'

The former child star, who had just turned 18 and had only just started working directly with his team, allegedly left the meeting feeling 'confused' but knew 'his manager would be happy he signed on for another season,' since he 'only paid his reps if he worked.'

'I thought, why is nobody looking out for me and just saying, 'Rider, if you don't want to do this, you don't have to?' There was no sense of that,' Strong added.

'I had my own relationship with my manager, my own relationship with my agent, which is why I walked into a meeting with Michael by myself and got completely screwed.'

Jacobs, 71, and Savage, 46, have not responded to The Daily Mail's requests for comment regarding the new book's revelations.

William Daniels, 99, was already 'an established, Emmy-winning actor' when he signed on to co-star as the youngsters' strict-but-caring teacher Mr Feeny. 

As such, the former St. Elsewhere star was the 'highest paid cast member' on set for Seasons 1 through 6, Entertainment Weekly reported.

As Season 7 loomed, the new book alleges that Savage 'negotiated to be close to, if not equal to' Daniels' paycheck for Season 7, earning the then 19-year-old 'close to six figures per episode.'

'We were making nowhere near that,' said Friedle, 50, revealing how he then went into studio negotiations with Strong 'so that the two of them were making the same salary.'

Meanwhile, scene-stealing Fishel, 45, who debuted on the series in 1993 as a guest star, was making less than Strong at the start of her run on the show as overachiever Topanga Lawrence, Cory's free-spirited girlfriend, eventual wife and moral compass of the friend group.

Fishel now claims Jacobs was angered by the negotiation tactics used to bump her from $7,500 an episode in Season 2 to $15,000 an episode in Season 3, according to USA Today. 

The then 13-year-old actress was advised to miss a table read to make her point. Following her raise, she said Jacobs 'pulled me aside, and he said, 'Don't you ever pull that s--t again,'' blasting her actions as 'very unprofessional.'

By the final season in 2000, Fishel's salary was increased to $30,000 an episode, which was still 20 percent less than Strong and Friedle earned.

In the end, Strong blamed a 'lot of miscommunication' for the disappointing paydays, saying he wished he and his fellow cast members could have said 'we're all equal here' during contract negotiations.

'But there was no sense of that,' Strong writes, claiming that Savage 'held out' for more after getting accepted into Stanford University.

'It seemed that Ben getting into Stanford was his biggest negotiating tactic, because the contract ended,' Strong added. 

'They wanted the seventh season, but he was like, 'Are you going to not allow me to go to college?' He stuck to his guns, and it worked out.' 

Some 26 years later, he admitted if he could go back in time, 'it would have ended differently.'

'I would have finished the sixth season, which I was contracted to do, and then I would have gotten the hell out of there,' added Strong, who co-hosts the rewatch podcast Pod Meets World with Fishel and Friedle, and created the true-crime audio project The Red Weather.