Ward has had a career like no other actress, starting out in a soap opera, before moving on to mainstream TV and movies, before eventually transitioning fully into the world of hardcore porn.
She shares all the details of her unique journey in her new memoir, Rated X: How Porn Liberated Me From Hollywood.
The book is out now, and ahead of its launch, Ward sat down with Newsweek to talk about everything from celebrity sex tapes, how her husband reacted to her new career, as well as opening up about a particularly challenging chapter to write.
A lot of content from this interview is NSFW, so an adult content warning is in full effect from this point on.
‘No Soilers’
“Can I tell you about the chapter on anal?” Ward asked Newsweek as the topic of her upcoming book comes up.
Whilst our journalist initially thought she was making a joke, there is in fact a chapter about preparing for her first on-camera anal scenes. “No spoilers… or no soilers!” She quipped.
Ward wants her readers to know that everything in Rated X: How Porn Liberated Me From Hollywood is 100 percent her.
“A lot of celebrity memoirs are ghostwritten, let’s be honest. But I wrote all of this on my own. It feels very personal to me and I’m very proud of it,” she told Newsweek.
Ward was even offered a ghostwriter in the past, but she was quick to refuse. “I’m a writer. I’ve taken writing classes. I’ve been at UCLA for screenwriting for two years, and I wanted to write my own book.”
She stated writing in early 2021, and 18 months later, Ward’s ready to share her full, (often extremely) intimate story with the world. “Of course it’s a story about porn but it’s also not. It’s fun. I’m a funny person too, so I think people will really like that.”
Going back to the aforementioned chapter, Ward happily shared, “It’s about the preparation of anal. It was a really big deal for me to do the scene. Girls get really serious about this stuff, so the theme of it is ‘a banana won’t fall out if your butt’ and it’s a really funny chapter.”
Ward explained: “Girls think if they eat anything ahead of time, it’ll like, just come out on screen. My lovely director Kayden Kross told me ‘a banana won’t just fall out of your butt. You can eat banana before.’”
Rated X isn’t all funny anecdotes about transitioning into porn, though. Ward makes sure to cover the dark moments of her career, and she opens up about her past.
“We have some really deep, thoughtful moments in it too but we break it up. We have deep chapters where I talk about my past, things that have affected me as a woman, sexually, psychologically.”
Husband’s Reaction
Ward didn’t instantly jump from Hollywood to the porn industry. It was a gradual pivot, with her role in the Wayans brother comedy White Chicks coming 12 years before she made her porn debut in the adult series Drive.
Throughout this transition, her husband Terry (aka John) Baxter has stood by her, and Ward also opens up about his impact on her life within the book.
“He actually has been instrumental in my career and my path, like towards porn, but it’s not in the way that people think.” Ward and Baxter married on October 15 2006, and the pair appear to be going strong to this day.
“A lot of people will say ‘oh he’s a cuck and he wants to watch you for his sexual gratification, but it has nothing to do with his sexual gratification.” Ward continued: “He has been so supportive of me because it’s something that I needed to do personally for my journey.
“I started off writing erotic stories and getting into that genre, and he saw that I needed to have an outlet. Then I stated doing my content,” and for years Ward posted topless and suggestive pictures online, before the days of OnlyFans. “My husband is a very good photographer, and he would take some pictures and stuff. Then all of a sudden it blew up overnight.”
When the conversation started to develop to Ward shooting sex scenes on camera with other men and women, once again her husband was supportive.
“He really stepped up because I was not going to make that leap,” said Ward, and she added that there is a “big moment in the book where we sit down and he really is like you need to do this for you, and that’s how it all began.
“He’s really super supportive of me and it has nothing to do with him like getting off on it. That’s a mistake [people make] and I hate the fact that people say that.”
What Porn Has That Hollywood Doesn’t
Ward’s career has been a talking point for years, as the content she posted online got gradually more explicit and “taboo.” As a result, people started to take notice and pass comment on her career transition.
“Nobody took me aside, but I definitely had a few cold shoulders. [A senior figure from] Boy Meets World … was very freaked out about it [and] he won’t say anything to my face.”
Ward was conspicuously missing from the 2014 reboot of Disney’s Boy Meets World. Many of the original characters returned, and some of Ward’s former cast members have voiced their support for Ward’s new career, although there have been some tense exchanges too.
“Danielle Fishell (Topanga Lawrence in Boy Meets World) has been not friendly with me over the years. This was way before porn. She came to my wedding, we were friends, and yet she has not really spoken to me since, so I know there was like problems there.” Ward added: “Nobody has come out and said ‘hey you shouldn’t do this.’
“I will say Trina McGee (Angela Moore on Boy Meets World) and Will Friedle (Eric Matthews) have been amazing. Will, he always says to me, ‘I will never watch anything you do, but I support you, because you’re like my sister.’ So that’s sweet.
“I have to say, I’m surprised that people from my past have been like ‘wow I’m so impressed with what you’re doing. I respect you so much.’ I thought there would be much more people coming against me, but it’s been like an outpouring of love.”
‘It’s Been Massively Profitable’
In terms of the career of an actress and a performer, Ward states that porn has given her far more than Hollywood ever did.
“I think in the beginning, people were questioning if I was crazy or whether I was on drugs, but they saw that I had huge success with it, that I was happy,” Ward stated.
“Listen, I have an acting career that I never thought I would have. I have more lines than I ever had in mainstream. I get paid better. I have a book that I got to write myself, I have a writing career. Porn has given me so much, I think people really see that, and I’ve had a lot of support as a result.”
When pressed on exactly how lucrative porn has been for her, Ward didn’t mention numbers specifically, but did suggest it’s been an incredibly financially beneficial step for her.
“It’s been massively profitable. Any performer who is successful and has a following, they can make so much more money than in mainstream.”
Ward made her hardcore porn debut at 42 years old, and now at 45, she explained where she wants her career to go next.
“I really want to work on my writing. And I would love to sell the rights to my story and have like a film or television show because it’s interesting and unique. I think it would also really shed some light on the porn industry. It would be good to bridge the gap between mainstream and porn like they seem to be now on those Netflix shows and stuff.”
Ward’s book, Rated X: How Porn Liberated Me From Hollywood, is available to buy now.
