Nearly 30 years after feeling slighted byBoy Meets Worldstar Rider Strong, Adam Scott has finally squashed the beef and found closure. For the unaware, Scott sat down forEntertainment Weekly’s Awardistpodcast in July 2025 and discussed a traumatic encounter he had as a budding actor trying to establish himself in the mid-1990s.
After landing a coveted guest spot on the hitteen sitcomBoy Meets World, Scott felt rejected by Rider Strong in an instance that’s been haunting his mind for the last three decades. Scott admitted that he needlessly obsessed over what in his mind was a beef between him and Strong. Fortunately, Scott and Strong recently reconciled and hashed out their versions of that fateful day on the set ofBoy Meets World. Now that the beef is cooked, it’s time to find out what transpired between Scott and Strong in 1994-95.
Who Did Adam Scott Play on ‘Boy Meets World’?
American actor Adam Scott began his acting career in 1994. His first TV credits came in single episodes ofERandDead at 21. That same year, Scott landed his first recurring TV role, a huge achievement for any young actor trying to find their footing in Hollywood. Scott’s recurring role was inBoy Meets World, a mega-popular teen sitcom starring Ben Savage as Cory Matthews and Rider Strong as his best friend, Shawn Hunter.
Introduced as a “Senior” inBoy Meets World, Season 2, Episode 8, “Band on the Run,“Scott’s character was given the name Griffin “Griff” Hawkins in Season 2, Episode 20, “Pop Quiz.” The second-leading bully behind Harley Keiner. When Harley is transferred to reform school, Griff stalks the halls of John Adams High and becomes the main threat to Shawn and Corey.
Although he’s a lone wolf bully at first, Griff recruits Harley’s enforcers, Joey and Frankie, and forms a gang of like-minded hellions to harass their classmates. Scott appeared two more times as Griff, including Season 2, Episode 21, “The Thrilla' in Phila',” and Season 3, Episode 4, “He Said, She Said.”
Also antagonizing Mr. Feeney (William Daniels), Griff became known for paying students to pose as him and attend his classes. He also arranges a boxing match between Cory and Joey at the school gym, where he sells tickets and invites celebrities to attend. After getting four years of school detention for the box match scandal, Griff gives Eric Matthews a scholastic letter from Feeney’s collection and urges him to use it to forge a university acceptance letter.
When Harley returns one day and challenges Griff to fight for stealing his sidekicks, Joey and Frankie break up the fight by severing ties with both bullies. Griff causally ambles away and is never heard from or seen again on the show.
Why Adam Scott Felt Disrespected by Rider Strong
In 2023, Adam Scott was invited to participate inPod Meets World, a podcast in whichBoy Meets WorldstarsRider Strong (Shawn Hunter), Will Friedle (Eric Matthews), and Danielle Fishel (Topanga Lawrence) re-watch the entire series with various guest stars and comment on their experiences. During the episode, Scott heaped praise on Rider Strong’s performance in the Season 2 episodes in which they shared the screen.
Scott’s praise soon turned confrontational when he began detailing how Rider Strong snubbed him on set, a memory that haunted theSeverancestar for three decades. In the podcast, Scott tells Strong:
“[After completing a scene], everyone just erupts and starts cheering. I give you a high five, and I go in and hug you, and as I do that, you push me off, and you give me this look like, ‘Wait a second. Who the f–k are you?’ And then you run away.”
The perceived slight crushed Scott at the time, a budding actor with only two previous credits, doing everything in his power to break out in Hollywood. The encounter made Scott reluctant to interact with other actors on different projects and has remained seared in his psyche for 29 years. However,Rider Strong didn’t even remember the encounterand responded by saying, “Are you serious? Why would I do that?”
The irony of Scott playing a schoolyard bully and being snubbed and quasi-bullied by Strong in real life is rather delicious, but the two actors have squashed the beef and are now on good terms with one another.
Adam Scott and Rider Strong Squashed The ‘Boy Meets World’ Beef
After confronting Strong onPod Meets Worldin 2023, Scott recently appeared onEntertainment Weekly’s Awardistpodcast and spoke about their eventual reconciliation. According to Scott: “Rider Strong, who the awkward interaction was with, didn’t even remember it. I truly had been carrying it around for 30 years, because it was like 1994. It’s crazy.I feel like we addressed it. I think it’s been squashed.”
Once the two actors discussed the encounter and buried the hatchet onPod Meets World, Scott began a healing process. As he told theAwardistpodcast: “It took me 20 years to overcome. It’s just being so freaked out being on a movie set or a TV set, because I was so excited about it, that I couldn’t kind of calm down and just relax and not worry about all the accoutrements around you.”
In quashing the so-calledbeef with Rider Strongover his traumaticBoy Meets Worldencounter, Adam Scott has shown immense resilience and perseverance en route to becoming a household name 30 years later.
