Rachael Leigh Cook has shared a rare glimpse into her teenage romance with Rider Strong.
Speaking to Strong’s Boy Meets World costar, Danielle Fishel, on the Wednesday, March 18, episode of the“Teenbeat” podcast, Cook, 46, reflected on their ‘90s relationship.
The She’s All That star revealed that Strong was “romantic” and “so deep” during their time together, and admitted that in hindsight she “didn’t understand him” as well as Fishel did.
“Rider’s the most poetic soul,” Cook said. “I remember this moment he had like, come to visit me in Italy, and there was this, like, field of sunflowers on the way to where we’re going.”
Cook explained that Strong, 46, decided on the spur of the moment to tell the driver to make a pitstop so the couple could run through the sunflowers together.
“He tells the driver, ‘Stop the car.’ And he looks at me and I’m like, ‘Oh no, what are we doing?’” Cook recalled. “We have to run into these flowers, like, really, spikey-looking flowers, like a movie.”
The actress noted that the experience made her realize that their personalities weren’t necessarily aligned enough for the relationship to be sustainable.
“I knew in that moment, like, I’m not, I’m not the person, what he’s ultimately gonna need,” she said. “And I tried, we got a little way into that field, and I was just like, ‘I don’t know about this.’”
The Josie and the Pussycat Dolls star also shared one of Strong’s past confessions to her.
“I remember one time he said to me, like, ‘If you weren’t with me, you know, who would you want to be with?” Cook recalled, explaining that she had responded with the name of her ex-boyfriend.
Cook then told Fishel, 44, that when she asked Strong the same question, he answered, “Danielle.”
Fishel has previously been candid about her crush on Strong while they acted together on Boy Meets World – which took place during the same time period that Strong was dating Cook.
Fishel first revealed her former feelings for her costar during an August 2022 episode of their podcast “Pod Meets World.”
“He was so smart, and … one of my favorite things about Rider — and it continues to this day — [is that] Rider is very effusive,” she said of what initially drew her to Strong.. “He will tell you how he feels and he’s very free with his compliments, but he doesn’t throw them out willy-nilly. When he compliments you, it is thoughtful, it has meaning, and you can tell it’s coming from a very real place.”
In an October 2023 episode of the podcast, Fishel read a passage from her teenage diary written in the ’90s, which detailed her jealousy over Cook and Strong’s relationship.
“Then we went to acting class but we had to wait for Rachael,” Fishel recounted, pointing out that the word “Rachael” was underlined in annoyance. “Then Rider and Rachael got all lovey-dovey, and it made me want to puke. Then they kissed, and it looked so cute. She’s actually really sweet and cool, but I really like Rider. I don’t think she’s right for him. Then again, maybe I’m not either.”
