Boy Meets World Beloved star may have played the upstanding moral next-door neighbor and school principal on the famous TV show. However, his private life was anything but ordinary. William Daniels and his wife, Bonnie Bartlett Daniels’ 72-year marriage is no exception.
William, 95, who is best known for his role as the beloved teacher Mr. George Feeny in “Boy Meets World,” had what, Bonnie, 93, refers to as “a little bit of an open marriage” at the beginning of their relationship. This means that they both had the freedom to explore romantic relationships outside of their marriage.
“I guess it was a little bit of an open marriage at first, but that was very painful,” Bartlett Daniels, 93, told Fox News Digital. “That didn’t work well.”
“And it was a time when people were doing that,” she continued. “It was at a time in New York when there was a lot of sex and a lot of people doing all kinds of things, you know — very free.”
Bonnie was not innocent in her relationship with William either, as she confessed she had “an affair that lasted a few months” with an actor who was “slightly boring” around 1959.
“I never felt guilty because I never felt tied to fidelity, and neither did Bill,” she writes in her book, Middle of the Rainbow.
However, it wasn’t until William had an affair in the ‘70s that Bonnie realized that she “could no longer tolerate any kind of open marriage.” This affair left Bonnie “devastated” and made her realize that fidelity was important to her.
“It was very painful for the both of us,” she said. “But it was something we had to go through because we never went through it.”
She continued, “When we got together, I was 18. Bill was my first boyfriend … We just had to go through all that, and still, we loved each other very much and always have.”
“[We] have always been there for each other. That’s what matters — if you’re there for the person and help [them] along in a relationship, [have] respect for them and what they’re doing and being there for them… [You have to] be together on the other side,” she said.
