Black actors have never had it easy, especially on Boy Meets World. Alum Trina McGee has remained very open about her experiences on the show and just revealed why she wasn’t on the final episode.
“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.’ That was the gist of it,” McGee said.
McGee played Angela Moore, Topanga’s (Danielle Fishel) best friend in college and Shawn’s (Rider Strong) long-term girlfriend for the last three years in the ABC sitcom.
She continues, “I was told that after I shot what was the show before the last episode, which was called ‘Angela’s Ashes’ when I left. When Michael (producer) announced we were going to do another show on Angela, I was so happy not realizing this was going to be the show before the last show.”
On a podcast episode, “Pod Meets World,” the cast reunited where McGee recalled some incidents and even a time she was told to bring “Black meter” down and called “Aunt Jemima” by Will Friedle on set.
She told Fishel, Friedle, and Strong during the podcast, “I remember after we taped the show, I had said to a person, ‘Why aren’t we on the last show?’ Because I know the last show was going to be the one with the ratings and the crying and all the stuff. 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.”
Friedle clarified that wasn’t the case at all and went on record saying, “Trina, that never happened. That’s not competitiveness, that’s sociopathy. This pisses me off. This is next level.”
After believing Friedle, Moore moved on to when she was told to bring her Black meter down. After working on predominantly Black casts, like A Different World, Martin, and Family Matters, her meter went down for Boy Meets World.
“My Black meter was probably down to a 2. I remember when I was doing ‘Angela’s Ashes’ episode, somehow my Black meter had slipped up and I was at about a 9. Michael came over to me and his note was, ‘Hey Trina, just turn down the Telma Hopkins about eight notches.”
It looks like Moore finally got some thoughts off her chest with the rest of her co-stars.
