Dancing With the Stars has been keeping Danielle Fishel pretty busy over the past couple of months, but not everybody is happy about it.
On the Monday, November 10, episode of her “Pod Meets World” podcast, Fishel, 44, revealed that her son Adler, 6, told his teacher that she had died because she’s been away from home more often due to the ABC reality competition’s packed schedule.
The Boy Meets World alum told cohosts Rider Strong and Will Friedle that in addition to the live shows and rehearsals each week, “I’m seeing the [physical therapist], or I’m in a wardrobe fitting, or I’m at a hair and makeup fitting, or I’m in camera-blocking — there’s always something to do.”
While Fishel initially thought her two sons — Adler and Keaton, 4 — with husband Jensen Karp were adjusting to their new normal, she recently got a call from Adler’s school.
“It’s his teacher. She says, ‘So, we had a little bit of an issue today with Adler and I wanted to talk to you about it,’” the actress recalled, noting that Adler was “having a little bit of trouble self-starting on some of his work.”
According to Fishel, when the teacher asked Adler what was going on, he told her that “he is feeling very stressed” because his “dad inputted a lot of information on the computer wrong and then got fired.” He then added, “Also, my mom died.”
“None of this is true,” Fishel caveated her story, adding that Adler “at some point” told his teacher “maybe it’s not true” that his mom had died.
Fishel said she got out of DWTS rehearsal at 2 p.m. that day and instead of seeing her physical therapist, she decided to pick her son up from school. That’s when she realized that Adler was struggling with her recent absence more than he had let on.
“He comes running to me: ‘Mom, what are you doing here?’ and I go, ‘I got out of rehearsal, I missed you, I wanted to pick you up,’” Fishel explained to her cohosts. “He goes, ‘Great, what are we doing tonight?’ and I said, ‘You’ve got movie night with your friends.’ He goes, ‘Oh, yeah, I remember that, but you know what, I just wanna hang out with you tonight.’ And I said, ‘Well, actually while you are at movie night, I have to go back to rehearsal.’ … And he bursts into tears.”
Fishel’s son told her, “I hate this job! Why did you take this job? All you do is dance, dance, dance, dance. That’s all you do! You never get to hang out with me and Keaton anymore. I want you to quit. Are you going to quit or not?”
“Everything just came out,” Fishel said.
Fishel said she apologized for not being around as much of late, but Adler was still adamant that she quit DWTS.
“He said, ‘I just need to know if you’re going to quit your job.’ I said, ‘Mommy’s not going to quit her job.’ And he said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Well, a couple of reasons. One, Mommy really loves her job. And two, because this job is not forever, and I made a commitment to the job,’” she recalled.
Fishel said she assured Adler that DWTS will be “over by Thanksgiving and things will go back to normal,” but told him, “In the meantime, you and I will find special ways to connect when I am able to be with you.” She added, “For the next few weeks it’s still going to be really hard. It’s totally understandable that you’re angry. I love you very much.”
Later, Adler apologized to his mom, but Fishel noted, “We’re still working through it.”
Monday’s podcast episode was recorded before Fishel and professional dance partner Pasha Pashkov were eliminated during Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Night on November 4. The duo performed a contemporary routine to Aerosmith’s “Dream On,” which scored 34 points from the judges, ranking them second from the bottom for the night.
“Tonight was my last night, it was my last dance. I was eliminated and I have such a wide range of emotions. My day-to-day life is going to so drastically change now. It couldn’t have gone any better. I am so lucky. I was so lucky that Pasha was my partner,” Fishel said through tears on her “Danielle With…” podcast.
