Six years ago, former Disney star Maitland Ward dipped her toes into the world of pornography, and she hasn’t looked back since.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, the former Disney star, who found fame while starring as Rachel McQuire in the later seasons of the beloved ‘90s TV show, “Boy Meets World,” opened up about her transition from child actress to adult film star and the “empowerment” she feels to this day.
“I really think people treat me with more respect now, honestly, especially even in Hollywood right now,” said Ward. “I’m pitching my memoir into a TV format and talking with people. They’re so respectful, and they’re so positive about my story, especially younger people and different people that I speak to in Hollywood and stuff. They’re just much more receptive to the story. And I really feel like I have a lot of positivity around it. I’m able to create my own brand, my own content, the way I want to create it.”
“I didn’t get anybody coming out hating me for it or anything,” she added of her decision to pursue pornography. “I really got a lot of positivity overall, which shocked everyone I knew. Everybody thought people were just going to rip me apart, and I was going to be judged and raked across the coals, but I got so much positivity and I think it’s because I was so positive about it, and I was so happy about it.”
Ward, who first starred as Jessica Forrester in “The Bold and the Beautiful” from 1994 until 1996, made waves when she appeared on “Boy Meets World” in the late ’90s.
“I was received very well, they were very nice to me,” Ward told Fox News Digital in 2022. “It was an odd thing to walk into a set that had been such a well-oiled machine and where they had grown up on the show. Everyone was established and knew how to work with each other. I was coming in for the college years, and I was nervous about that. But I was accepted . . . and I had a great time on the show.”
WATCH: FORMER DISNEY STAR CLAIMS PEOPLE TREAT HER WITH ‘MORE RESPECT’ AFTER LAUNCHING PORN CAREER
Since the show’s wrap, however, Ward has found success in a not-so-traditional industry: porn.
“I’m creating full-length movies. I’m doing things like making projects that I really feel passionate about,” she said. “I work with a female director, who has been amazing. And I think people are always surprised by that, that two women are creating these long erotic, pornographic art pieces. And I think that’s really special.”
Through her work in the adult film industry, Ward, who struggled with body image in her younger years, said she’s found an abundance of confidence.
LIKE WHAT YOU’RE READING? CLICK HERE FOR MORE ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
“Just to be naked by myself and be confident in my body and myself, I would never have been able to do that [before],” Ward admitted. “Porn has really given that to me, that empowerment, to be able to stand in my own skin, to be able to create projects that I want to create and be proud of, to go against the mold and do something that other people haven’t done or have been too scared to do and to have the courage and confidence to do that. When you succeed at it, it’s like you feel so much more confident, because you’ve done something like nobody else has done.”
“On the set of porn sets, I have felt the most comfortable I have ever felt on a set, especially in an intimate situation, because I really feel there’s a lot of conversation, and nobody is shy to have the conversation or backs away from it,” she added.
This isn’t the first time Ward has opened up about her career path.
Ward, who published her memoir, “Rated X: How Porn Liberated Me from Hollywood” in 2022, told Fox News Digital she feels as if porn really opened the door for her to feel her “authentic self.”
“I think it’s an empowering story for women and everyone really,” Ward said at the time. “It’s about living your truth and not listening to what everyone is telling you to do. For so long, Hollywood was telling me that I could only be a certain way. The industry wanted to keep me in some box. I reached a point where I just wanted to do my own thing. I’m now my authentic self. There are always going to be people who will try to pigeonhole you, especially as a woman. For me to break out has been so liberating. I think that’s true for anyone in any industry. My story just happens to be a little more scandalous.”
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER
These days, Ward, who recently found herself in a heated exchange with former “Boy Meets World” co-stars during an appearance on the “Pod Meets World” podcast, said she’s staying focused on the positive and trying to use her experiences as a learning curve.
“I was very uncomfortable when I was younger. Did I look sexy enough? Was I thin enough? Was I good enough, and was I pretty enough?” she recalled. “And I feel so sad for her, because I look back, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, these pictures are so pretty.’ And I thought, at the time, they were awful. I looked horrible. I was so hard on myself.”
“I just wish my younger self knew that she would and knew that she had power in that and that she could use that power for her own good and her own agency and to really stand in that,” she concluded. “But honestly, you have to live the path all the way through in order for that to really mean something.”
