Danielle Fishel Reflected On Selling Disney Her Likeness As Topanga At A Very Young Age, And It's Pretty Eye-Opening: "I Get Zero Percent"
by Anna Good · BuzzFeedPosted on Nov 12, 2026 UTC
Danielle Fishel, one of the lead actors on the classic ABC sitcom Boy Meets World, revealed a stark reality of television contracts and her experience of how underage actors were taken advantage of back in the day.
In a recent interview on the podcast Chicks in the Office to talk about her new book, Book Meets World, the actor revealed that she makes no money off of official Topanga merchandise because of a contract she signed while underage and working on the show that many millennials grew up watching.
"My actual contract from the '90s says that they own my likeness on any planet, in any universe, forever, in perpetuity," Fishel revealed to the surprise of the interviewers.
"And so the fact that I'm able to have a face and use it on anything is a little shocking."
She continued, "Anything that says, like, 'Topanga’ associated with that, 'We own that!'"
The interviewers then suggested a made-up scenario where aliens descended on Earth. Fishel replied, "It doesn't matter. On any planet, in any universe."
One of the podcasters asked her, "And what does that mean when you — like, for people listening — your likeness, like, expand on that a little bit?"
"So, our contracts did not include any sort of percentage carve-out for us to make any money on anything they made."
"Now, when you do a movie or something, in the contract it's like, okay, and we might use your likeness, your face, your physical face and representation in the movie or the show."
"We might use it to sell merch. And because of that, we're going to give you, say, 2%, 5%. I get 0%."
"So, anything they've ever sold, any Topanga T-shirt you've ever seen that's officially licensed, whatever was made, everything that's especially, you know, officially licensed..."
"...ABC or someone owns that license and keeps and makes, you know, makes and keeps whatever they sell."
It's worth noting that Fishel isn't the first former child star to speak out about the poor working conditions, financial situation, and care received while working on these shows that defined many people's childhoods.
Brenda Song and Dylan Sprouse, for example, recently spoke out about their experiences working on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody and The Suite Life on Deck.
"I know everybody has their own journey," Brenda Song told former costar Dylan Sprouse on his Wildmen podcast. "I had a lovely time. I think the only thing that, like, was hard about that time was, I feel like we were underpaid and overworked."