Boy Meets World’s Maitland Ward Feels Like ‘People Treat Me with More Respect’ Due to Pornography Career

Maitland Ward is proud of every aspect of her career.

In the ‘90s, Ward could be seen on the ABC sitcom Boy Meets World and the popular daytime soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful. Two decades later, she transitioned into pornography. In a recent interview with Fox News Digital, Ward opened up about how that drastic career move impacted her life.

“I really think people treat me with more respect now, honestly, especially even in Hollywood right now,” she revealed. “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. They’re just much more receptive to the story. And I really feel like I have a lot of positivity around it. I’m able to create my own brand, my own content, the way I want to create it.”

Best known for starring as Rachel McGuire on the later seasons of Boy Meets World, Ward admitted that she was nervous about the public reaction to her doing porn when she first started in 2019. Six years later, she said the response wasn’t what she expected.

“I didn’t get anybody coming out hating me for it or anything,” she shared. “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.”

Now 48 years old, the actress said appearing in adult films feels liberating and brings her a sense of confidence she didn’t have before.

“Just to be naked by myself and be confident in my body and myself, I would never have been able to do that [before],” Ward explained. “Porn has really given that to me, that empowerment, to be able to stand in my own skin, to be able to create projects that I want to create and be proud of, to go against the mold and do something that other people haven’t done or have been too scared to do and to have the courage and confidence to do that. When you succeed at it, it’s like you feel so much more confident, because you’ve done something like nobody else has done.”

“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,” she added. 

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 

In 2022, Ward revealed whether any of her Boy Meets World costars had reached out in support of her career change during an appearance on the Skinny Confidential Him & Her podcast.

“I didn’t really get any response from anyone,” she said. “Trina [McGee] did. She supported me in the beginning and Will [Friedle] has contacted me since then and says he supports me, but won’t watch anything that I do.”

Ben Savage, who has pursued a political career since his time on the beloved series, told E! News in September that he “was definitely somebody who was supportive” of Ward’s work in the adult entertainment industry.