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Maitland Ward went from being a sitcom star to an adult film star.
From 1998 until 2000, the actress played Rachel McGuire in the last two seasons of ABC’s “Boy Meets World.” After her time on the series, Ward later broke into the adult film industry. She has detailed her surprising career path in a memoir published on Sept. 6 titled “Rated X: How Porn Liberated Me from Hollywood.”
“I think it’s an empowering story for women and everyone really,” Ward, 45, told Fox News Digital. “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.”
Maitland Ward is embracing her “authentic self” in the adult film industry.
(Gabe Ginsberg/WireImage)
The California native said that as a child she dreamed of becoming an actress. Her first role was that of Jessica Forrester on “The Bold and the Beautiful” from 1994 until 1996. After the soap opera, she found herself on the set of “Boy Meets World,” a wholesome coming-of-age comedy created by Michael Jacobs. Ward joined a close-knit cast as the new girl.
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“I was received very well, they were very nice to me,” Ward explained. “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…