Maitland Ward.Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty
Maitland Wardis sharing her experience breaking into the adult film industry after her time onBoy Meets World.
The actress, 45, played Rachel McGuire on the last two seasons of the ABC sitcom from 1998 to 2000, but she later found a career that she is exploring in her upcoming memoirRated X: How Porn Liberated Me from Hollywood.
Ward started making adult films after she married husband Terry Baxter in 2006. He was “super supportive,” she toldYahoo Life, adding, “Our sex life is way better now.”
“I mean, it was always good and, and intimate and you know, like a marriage should be,” she explained. “But I think now that I’m really open with myself and I can try new things and I’m not holding back or anything — I think that’s really sexy.”
Maitland Ward in 1998.ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty
She noted, referencing one of her character’s storylines onBMW: “If I was on a show, likeBoy Meets World, I could be sexy. I could wear a sheet with little feathers on it in nude pictures that I had for my boyfriend — that’s fine.”
But according to the star, “If I ever wore anything like that, or did anything suggestive like that in real life, Disney and producers and Hollywood would’ve come down on me. Especially the producer,Michael Jacobs— he was very adamant about me being chaste and the good girl.”
An attorney for Jacobs did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
Maitland Ward’s book cover.Amazon
Ward told the outlet that she realizes “It’s scary to forge your own path, but it’s the only way that you’re going to be happy.”
“It doesn’t have to be porn. That’s my more scandalous side,” she said. “I didn’t just switch overnight. It’s about making conscious efforts and decisions over time to get to a place that you want to be, embracing your truth. I want people to embrace their truth and just live how they want to live and be who they want to be. People are attracted to that.”
She also said she “feels less ofthat stigma” in regards to agingwhen it comes to adult-film audiences, as opposed to the general aging-related pressures of Hollywood.
“I had more fans coming along as I’ve been older and been sexual … I was told nobody would come along and now I’ve had major success with it,” Ward said. I think it’s just all part of this Hollywood machine — they want to keep you in a certain place at a certain time."
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Rated X: How Porn Liberated Me from Hollywoodis out Sept. 6.
source: people.com