Boy Meets World alum Maitland Ward says she’s treated with ‘more respect’ as a porn star than as an actress

Maitland Ward discussed her journey from actress to adult film star and how she is treated with ‘more respect’ now. 

‘I really think people treat me with more respect now, honestly, especially even in Hollywood right now,’ the Boy Meets World star, 48, shared in an interview with Fox News.

‘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,’ she added.

‘They’re just much more receptive to the story,’ the star explained. 

Maitland — who recently attended the 2025 AVN Expo — went on to say that she now has the freedom to navigate her career.

‘I’m able to create my own brand, my own content, the way I want to create it.’

The adult film performer recounted her entry into the industry, noting that she experienced no negative reactions when she started her sex work career around 2019.

‘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.’ 

Before her entry into the adult film industry, Ward gained recognition for her roles on The Bold and the Beautiful (1994-1996) and Boy Meets World (1998-2000).

Ward, who previously struggled with body image, also told Fox she gained confidence through her work.

‘Just to be naked by myself and be confident in my body and myself, I would never have been able to do that [before],’ she shared, adding that porn has given her ’empowerment.’

‘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.’

In January Ward proudly flaunted her curves at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas.

She rubbed shoulders with fellow X-rated performers at the expo, including Angela White, who has been dubbed ‘the Meryl Streep of porn’ for her award-winning performances.

OnlyFans sensation Lily Phillips – who went viral for bedding 100 men in a single night – was also in attendance, as was her rival Bonnie Blue.

Maitland looked completely in her element as she posed up a storm in a plunging black leotard that showed off her cleavage.

Maitland got her big break in acting playing Jessica Forrester on The Bold and The Beautiful.

She went on to star in notable guest spots on hit shows like Home Improvement, before landing her biggest role as Rachel McGuire on Boy Meets World.

After the series ended in 2000, Maitland made sporadic film appearances, most memorably in the 2004 comedy White Chicks.

But, when her mainstream acting career dried up, she eventually made the full leap into adult films in 2019.

She later detailed her journey from Hollywood to porn in her memoir, Rated X: How Porn Liberated Me from Hollywood.

In her memoir the actress revealed that she was turned off to Hollywood by producers on Boy Meets World who told her to ‘play dumb’ so she would be more ‘likable’.

Ward goes on to write that she finally felt ‘free’ while performing hardcore sex scenes, which now earn her six figures a month from an adoring fan base.

When the show finally got canceled, Ward went out and bought a Rabbit vibrator which she said ‘lit up my entire life.’

She went to a BDSM class and during a lecture about dominance and subservience Ward writes that ‘for the first time someone was talking of the merits of extremes and I was listening’

Ward tried to land more acting roles but found herself typecast from Boy Meets World and told she was too old even though she was still in her 20s.

Girl Meets World, a reboot of Boy Meets World, premiered in 2014 and sparked new interest in the original series but Ward resisted the idea of her character coming back as she felt it meant she would have to ‘behave’ offscreen.

Instead she fired her agent after he called her a ‘wh**e’ and began appearing at Comic Cons and dressing more sexily on the red carpet with outfits from Tom Mark, who told her that her breasts, were ‘made for the world to see.’

Frustrated that her increasingly risqué photos were being taken down from Twitter, Ward set up a Patreon account and within three days she had $40,000 come in from people who wanted the content.

She began to do Premium Snapchat videos, her first showing her walking down the hall in red stilettos then getting into a bath naked.

By then Ward felt like a ‘changed person’ and was ready to start making her own porn films. A friend introduced her to Isiah Maxwell, a prominent male porn star, and Baxter helped film the movie.

Her fans had ‘heart attacks’ and some Boy Meets World devotees told her she had ‘ruined my childhood’, Ward writes.

Describing one of her X-rated online sessions, the star shared: ‘I can’t tell you what an odd yet exciting feeling it is to know that all [these] people [are] watching you. It’s intimacy like no other.’