Maitland Ward revealed she feels more empowered and respected in her career as a porn star than she did as a television actress.
“I really think people treat me with more respect now, honestly, especially even in Hollywood right now,” the “Boy Meets World” alum told Fox News in a recent interview.
“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.”
Ward, 48, explained that the executives are “much more receptive” to her story.
“I really feel like I have a lot of positivity around it,” she explained. “I’m able to create my own brand, my own content, the way I want to create it.”
The adult entertainer also detailed her start in the industry, saying she didn’t receive any hate when she began to pursue her newfound path around 2019.
“I really got a lot of positivity overall, which shocked everyone I knew,” she said.
“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 famously starred in the soap opera “The Bold and the Beautiful” from 1994 to 1996 and the ’90s sitcom “Boy Meets World” as Rachel McGuire from 1998 to 2000 before dipping her toes in the porn industry.
In her 2022 memoir, “Rated X,” the former actress described becoming an adult actor as “soul-changing.”
“I had new confidence and a full-time job, and it wasn’t because I smiled for any higher-ups,” she wrote.
“The validation that I was given, especially after being told that no one would ever pay a dime to see me sexy, was soul-changing.”
That same year, Ward told Page Six that her husband, Terry Baxter, pushed her to shoot porn scenes with other men in the industry.
“He saw a truth in me that I wasn’t going to cross the boundary of … getting with guys, basically,” she explained. “He saw that I had a lot of these fantasies.”
Ward and Baxter have been married since 2006.
