Rider Strong reveals he 'did not want to be associated' with 'Boy Meets World' and 'literally ran away' from LA when they weren't filming

• Rider Strong told Insider he "did not want to be associated" with "Boy Meets World" when it was a hit.
• He said his attitude was due to "adolescent insecurity."

"Boy Meets World" star Rider Strong told Insider that he has one regret from his time starring as Shawn Hunter on the hit sitcom.

"I did not want to be associated with the show, which is crazy to me now," Strong said in an interview promoting the new iHeartRadio rewatch podcast "Pod Meets World" that he's cohosting with former castmates Danielle Fishel and Will Friedle. "For years in my mid-teens, I didn't watch the show. Whenever we were down from the show, I literally ran away from Los Angeles and buried my head in the sand."

On the premiere episode of the podcast, which was released on June 27, he admitted he "didn't want to be there from the get-go" and even said that as a young teenager, he thought signing a seven-year contract to appear on the show was "death."

But with age, Strong told Insider he's gained much-needed perspective about the years he spent on the hit sitcom.

"In retrospect I'm like, 'That's pretty bad,'" he said. "I should have just been happier and lived in the moment and been proud of the show and been proud of what we were doing. But instead, I don't know, I had a real chip on my shoulder."

Strong described his younger self as "anti-mainstream" and blamed his attitude on "adolescent insecurity."

No matter his unenthusiastic feelings about his job at the time, Strong did learn lessons on the "Boy Meets World" set that would serve him well in the future.

Strong told Insider that many directors "came on and taught us things about the industry and acting and cameras and stuff that I still use to this day directing."

He said on the podcast premiere that he prefers to work behind the camera now. Strong directed 18 episodes of the "Boy Meets World" spinoff "Girl Meets World" from 2014 to 2016, and he and Friedle announced on the podcast that they are currently co-writing a project together.

New episodes of "Pod Meets World" release on Mondays. Listen below.