NEWS'Boy Meets World' Star Will Friedle Shares 'Awful Stories' From His Childhood, Reveals He Smoked Cigarettes at 11
Will Friedle and his Boy Meets World character Eric Matthews didn't have a very similar upbringing.
During the actor's appearance on the "Hey Dude... The 90s Called!" podcast, he explained that whenever he tells people the wild things he got up to in his youth, "they think I'm lying, or they think my parents had a serious problem."
Will Friedle was on his own while auditioning for roles in his early years.
Friedle, 47, explained that while his parents were supportive of his acting dreams, they weren't willing to drop their own law careers to help him, so he often traveled to auditions without them.
"My manager would pick me up most of the time, and I would walk the streets at 11 years old," he recalled of being in NYC on his own. "I would go to my audition ... These stories are awful."
The actor starred in 'Boy Meets World' from 1993 to 2000.
"I started smoking at a very young age, so I would go, and I would buy my cigarettes," he confessed. "I would buy a couple p--- magazines because I knew that I could sell them for way more money to my friends back in Connecticut, so I could jack up the price."
"So I would stop at the kiosk, they would look at me and say, 'Well you're 11, so of course. Here are cigarettes and p---,'" he quipped of how things weren't very strict back then.
The TV star took a break from acting to focus on his mental health.
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The TV star noted that his mom and dad never knew about what he was doing until years later.
"I tell my parents these stories now, and they are retroactively mortified that any of this ever happened," he confessed.
While Friedle knows most people will be taken aback by his stories, he said he "loved" his time in the city.
"[Avon, Conn.] was a wonderful place to grow up, but I experienced more real life in the three or four hours I was in New York City every week than I ever did in Avon," he explained. "And it was a great way to see the world."
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Growing up and trying to pursue a career in Hollywood wasn't all fun and games, as the former heartthrob started experiencing anxiety in the late '90s.
Friedle detailed one scary incident that occurred while filming H-E Double Hockey Sticks.
"I'm in the middle of a take and I have my first panic attack," he spilled. "They used the take, so I can actually watch my first panic attack ever [in the movie]. But I'm the only one who knows it."
The TV star co-hosts the podcast 'Pod Meets World' with his old costars Rider Strong and Danielle Fishel.
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"I thought I was dying," he said. "You have to be dying because there is no other explanation for why, all of a sudden, your body and mind are doing this to you."
The star eventually sought out treatment and started medication.
"Your whole life is different. Everything is different. The colors are different, food tastes different, acting is different," he explained of how he felt after addressing his problems. "You are a different person human being than you were the nanosecond before you had the panic attack."
