Will Friedle’s racist and insensitive comments about Trina McGee
In January 2020, Trina McGee (Angela) opened up about the disrespect she experienced on Boy Meets World, including being “called Aunt Jemima on set.”
She then revealed that Will had made this remark and that he had apologized to her “22 years ago and also a few days ago in a three-page letter.”
In April 2020, she posted on Instagram: “We talked about this more and he admitted that he wasn’t educated enough in his early 20s to understand what he was really pissing me off about. This should and can be a teaching moment for everyone.”
Eventually, Trina and Will moved forward.
“Will apologized to me and I forgave him. Then I apologized to him for making that comment public, because his joke wasn’t made out of malice, it was just ignorance, and he forgave me,” she said. “That’s what friends do.”
As Will recalled in 2022’s Pod Meets World, he saw Trina come out of her dressing room wearing a “big red scarf,” but “there was no cultural meaning to it at all.”
He continued that he thought he was making fun of her like the rest of the cast and decided to “make fun of her red hat.”
“As far as my stupid sense of entitlement saw it, that was it,” Will said. “So, right before I played the role, I walked by and said, ‘I love syrup,’ and I walked onto the set and excitedly asked her to put the hat on.”
Trina told Will that the joke was bad, and Will was “mortified,” noting that the moment changed his life.
“You can’t just throw something there and walk away because you think it’s funny,” he said. “You may be hurting someone.”
