'Boy Meets World' alum Maitland Ward talks ‘liberating’ transition to porn

She says the transition to adult film has brought with it 'more fame, more money and more acting opportunities' than ever. Photo: Maitland Ward/Instagram

When this girl met porn.

Boy Meets World alum Maitland Ward is peeling back the curtain on her “liberating” decision to abandon Hollywood for adult films.

“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,” the 45-year-old actress told Fox News Digital while promoting her new memoir, Rated X: How Porn Liberated Me From Hollywood.

She played Rachel McGuire, roommate to and love interest of Eric Matthews (Will Friedle) and Jack Hunter (Matthew Lawrence) on the ABC sitcom from 1998 to the series finale in 2000.

The transition to adult film – made in October 2019 with skin flick, Drive – has brought with it “more fame, more money and more acting opportunities” than ever, said the White Chicks actress.

She told In Touch Weekly at the time that she hoped her more traditional acting roles “add any legitimacy to a great project” or might hook prospective viewers.

Noting in her new interview that she doesn’t “give up easily” and “kept trying to think of ways to reinvent myself,” Ward said she’d “wanted to play more dramatic roles, more emotional roles, even more evil roles” in Hollywood but “wasn’t even allowed to audition for” such parts.

Now though, she said that she does “get to create roles. I get lengthy, twisted dialogue. I get to write scripts. I get to do all the things that I wanted to do. I even have more respect now for doing exactly what I want to do unapologetically.”

Ward, who played Jessica Forrester on The Bold And The Beautiful from 1994 to 1996, told Fox that she even has the moral support of former co-stars like Friedle and Trina McGee, who on Boy Meets World portrayed Shawn Hunter’s (Rider Strong) girlfriend Angela Moore.

When Friedle called to tell Ward he “was proud” of her, she noted the Kim Possible actor, 46, “said he will never watch anything that I do, but he supports me.

“I’ve been best friends with Trina (McGee) for years, and she supports me,” said Ward, who feels her new career has let her be her “authentic self”. – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service