Maitland Ward has never been second fiddle. She’s starring front and center in the series finale of A&E’s eight-part documentary series Secrets of Celebrity Sex Tapes, and the episode OnlyFans: The New Frontier drops Monday, September 29. The former Boy Meets World and The Bold and the Beautiful star talks about how she took the reins of her career, transformed herself, and forced Hollywood and the public to see her on her own terms.
From Sitcom Starlet to Sex-Positive Pioneer
Ward’s professional trajectory is like a self-determination playbook. Having gone from breakout star as Rachel on Boy Meets World and White Chicks roles and a turn on The Bold and the Beautiful, she might have slowly disappeared from view. But she broke out of the box in 2019 with an entry into adult entertainment, something that surprised many but ultimately provided her with artistic liberty.
“This eye-opening series takes an honest look at how fame, sexuality, and ownership of your image have evolved,” Ward clarified. “Secrets of Celebrity Sex Tapes gave me the space to talk about how I’ve taken control of my career, how that’s changed my life, and why that matters in a culture still figuring out how to respect those choices.”
Hollywood’s Outdated Laws vs. The Age Of OnlyFans
The ending isn’t just highlighting Ward, it breaks down a cultural transformation. Ward shares the stage with fellow former Disney child Dan Benson (Wizards of Waverly Place), who both map out how creator-led platforms such as OnlyFans turned things upside-down. For decades, power lay with Hollywood. Now, actors are defining their destinies without studios, agents, or old-time reps.
Ward and Benson’s careers illuminate the ways in which autonomy and fan attachment generate a more profitable and sustainable type of stardom. OnlyFans: The New Frontier is more than an episode title, it is the reality of contemporary stardom.
The Redhead Who Ruled Two Industries
Ward’s pivot hasn’t been a flash-in-the-pan stunt, it’s been a sustained, award-winning run. She’s racked up AVN and XBIZ trophies for films like Drive, Muse, and Drift, cementing herself as both a performer and an actress capable of carrying feature-length roles with weight. Her exclusive contract with Vixen Media Group’s Deeper studio made her a household name in adult film circles, but her crossover success is what makes her story unique.
She’s also starred in and co-produced the TV show The Big Time, answered the thriller title in Just for You, and written Rated X: How Porn Liberated Me from Hollywood, a memoir which garnered awards from AVN and Kirkus respectively. Standing 5’10 with piercing red hair and irrefutable screen presence, Ward has demonstrated the ability to take over whatever path she decides to follow.
A Finale Fueled with Power, Not Scandal
What could have been another scandal-mongering doc series gets concluded with an empowering message instead. Secrets of Celebrity Sex Tapes started with leaked sex tapes and public humiliation but concludes with stars such as Ward who never gave anyone permission to define them.
Ward isn’t a warning tale but a reinvention study. In an industry so quick to unload women when their “market value” depreciates, she’s established a market, an audience, an empire all self-generated. With OnlyFans: The New Frontier, A&E concludes the series on agency, ambition, and rewriting the stardom playbook, and not on gossip. And if Maitland Ward has made anything clear, it’s this: she’s hardly done rewriting.
