Actress and current Dancing with the Stars competitor Danielle Fishel may have risen to fame as the romantic interest for Cory Matthews (played by Ben Savage) on Boy Meets World, but her real-life love story is with Jensen Karp, 45, who Danielle, 44, has known since high school (how Topanga of her!). Since the couple wed in 2018, they have welcomed two children together: Adler, 6, and Keaton, 4. Here's everything you need to know about Danielle's husband and kids.
Jensen Karp
Jensen is something of a jack of all trades in the entertainment business. He began with a short-lived career in his youth as a rapper: He first signed with Ice T's label, Rhyme Syndicate Records, at 11 years old and recorded an album under the name "Hot Karl" that featured Kanye West, will.i.am, DJ Quik, Sugar Ray and more artists, though the album never actually debuted due to scheduling conflicts with the label. Jensen has occasionally recorded music since then, and detailed his experiences with the music industry in a 2016 book, titled Kanye West Owes Me $300: And Other True Stories from a White Rapper Who Almost Made It Big.
Jensen has written and produced for television, including for the Grammys, the ESPYs, the MTV Movie Awards, the Masked Singer and Sacha Baron Cohen's show Who Is America? He also created a segment called "Drop the Mic" for The Late Late Show with James Corden, which was later turned into its own television show that Jensen is credited on as an executive producer.
If that wasn't enough, Jensen has also hosted a handful of podcasts and radio shows, as well as serving as a producer on Danielle's Boy Meets World rewatch podcast, Pod Meets World. And he co-owns Gallery1988, a pop art and pop culture-centric art gallery in Los Angeles.
Jensen and Danielle met when they attended Calabasas High School together, but it wasn't until nearly two decades later — following Danielle's divorce from her former Santiago Canyon College classmate, Tim Belusko, in 2016 — that their love story officially began.
"She is just the greatest person in the world and to imagine someone I went to high school with was always my person, is remarkable," Jensen wrote on social media back in 2018 while announcing their engagement. "You never know."
Danielle and Jensen tied the knot on November 4, 2018, in a wedding ceremony that featured Danielle's Girl Meets World costar Sabrina Carpenter as a bridesmaid, John Mayer and Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park as groomsmen, and Danielle's Boy Meets World costars Ben Savage and Will Friedle as guests.
Adler Karp
Danielle and Jensen welcomed their first child, Adler Lawrence Karp, on June 24th, 2019. Since his birth, Danielle has been open about the struggles their family endured after Adler was born four weeks prematurely and experienced complications including fluid buildup in his lungs, which prompted a prolonged neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) stay.
"Thus we entered a nightmare we'll never forget," Danielle captioned an Instagram announcing Adler's birth a week later. "This has been the most trying week and a half of mine and @jensenkarp's lives but we have gotten through it with the support of our incredible family and friends who have shown up for us in unexpected ways. Jensen and I have also become closer than we ever thought possible and the love between us has grown exponentially as we have leaned on each other during both our highest highs and our lowest lows. We feel helpess and powerless and useless and we wanted so badly to follow our 'birth plan,' unsurprisingly none of which involved leaving our beautiful baby boy at the hospital for the first weeks of his life. We have also struggled with making this announcement - we are THRILLED Adler is here and we want to shout it from the rooftops but we know posting about his birth and it's complications opens us up to prying eyes - aka paparazzi staked outside our house, following our every move they way they did several times during my pregnancy. We are much too fragile for that right now and I pray wholeheartedly that we can have some space as we navigate these next few weeks."
Adler went on to recover, and though Danielle and Jensen largely try to shield their children from being seen, they have shared a handful of updates on their older son via social media through the years, including an early video of him walking, a clip of him getting educated on the important things (the names of all the members of NSYNC) and being a little bit skeptical of the Christmas decorations his parents chose.
Keaton Karp
Adler's younger brother, Keaton Joseph Karp, was welcomed on August 29, 2021. Danielle shared the sweet family connections that Keaton's name and birthday held in an Instagram post announcing the baby's birth, featuring a sweet photo of Adler holding his new baby brother.
"He was born on his deceased grandfather Larry's birthday (like I prayed for!) and his middle name is an homage to his great grandfather who is still here to meet him at almost 98 years old," Danielle captioned the post. "Adler is a super(hero) big brother and @jensenkarp and I are thrilled to have him home, healthy and safe, with us."
More recently, Danielle shared an update on Keaton taking his "first real steps." Danielle and Jensen have continued to make it a habit of not showing either child's face online, but the actress does share photos and videos of their kids either from behind or with a sticker blocking their faces.