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Former Disney star Maitland Ward says young actors were treated like a ‘product’ in Hollywood factory
As a teenager, Maitland Ward — who first found fame as Jessica Forrester in “The Bold and the Beautiful,” and later Rachel McQuire in the beloved ‘90s Disney TV show, “Boy Meets World” — was exposed to a dark side of Hollywood that wasn’t often discussed. From being put in compromising and “provocative” positions as a minor on set to quickly becoming a product of a “twisted male gaze” at such a young age, the California native faced a wave of challenges and is now gearing up to expose the pitfalls of young stardom.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, the former child actress, who stars in the upcoming episode of Investigation Discovery’s “Hollywood Demons”, opens up about her troubling past of becoming a man-made “product” as a kid and explained how she managed to escape social norms and make waves as an adult film star.
“I can’t speak to how Hollywood is today because it’s such a different animal than it was back when I was getting into it,” said Ward, 49. “Back then, I think they looked at these young actors as like property coming in. And I really believe the studios, they wanted to mold and form these young actors into what they wanted them to be, what they needed them to be for the company and for the audience, to what they felt would identify with.”
“I think it was such a factory kind of environment. Like you were just a product being sold, and you knew that yourself,” she continued. “I mean, I didn’t think anything was wrong at the time with anything that was going on really. I mean it felt ill at ease in my own body and all my feelings and stuff, but I thought that was just me being stupid. I have to be professional. I have to be part of that Hollywood machine. And that’s really what it was.”
For Ward, telling her story in “Hollywood Demons” was an opportunity to release baggage that has been with her all these years.
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“It was very therapeutic to tell the story at the age that I am now about my 16-year-old self, 17, 20, whatever, that my young self coming up in a business that thought of her as a product and was very dismissive of the product a lot of the time. They just wanted it for what they wanted it for. And then cast it aside when they didn’t. And that happened to many, many young actors.”
“I think this show really examines that on a lot of fronts in young Hollywood, especially in that world of the 90s and the early 2000s, where women were just put into this box where you had to be this young woman that was either, a virgin and a slut all at once,” she continued. “And I hate to use those terms exactly, but that’s what it was.”
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“It was like the Britney Spears thing. She had to go on TV and swear up and down she was a virgin, but she was being used provocatively for her body and her sexual image, and it was all for this like twisted male gaze that Hollywood was just inflicting on everybody. They were telling us things, like this is what the audience wants, this is how they want you to be, this is how they want women to be. But it really wasn’t true because if you go back or you talk to people now, they were like, ‘Oh, I love this stuff about you, or I love stuff about the show.’ And it’s so different from what we were told the audience was craving.”
Looking back at her time on “Boy Meets World,” Ward, who was 21 when she joined the cast in the later seasons, said it’s difficult to look back at all the “provocative, weird situations” she was put in.
In a 2022 interview with Complex, Ward detailed being “sexualized” while starring on the Disney show.
WATCH: Former Disney star Maitland Ward says young actors were treated like a ‘product’ in Hollywood factory
“I didn’t realize the food fight was such a fetish kind of thing, like, food and feet and all this stuff going on. I didn’t realize all of the innuendos that were made in Rachel’s direction and I think the writers, and Michael especially, really enjoyed playing with that, but then it could not be on my terms,” Ward said, referencing co-creator Michael Jacobs.
Ward said she didn’t think much of it at the time.
“We all just thought it was normal and nobody thought anything of it,” Ward told Fox News Digital. “And I’m sure like a younger audience, like if I was a kid watching that and I didn’t think anything of that. But when you examine it, adults were creating this space and making this kind of product. It’s really troubling just seeing how other people have been through similar situations.”
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Ward said that because it was taboo to discuss any feelings of doubt at the time, she finds it freeing to be able to air out her grievances and connect with others who were put in similar situations.
“It’s kind of freeing to say, ‘Oh, wait, you felt that way too? And you went through a similar situation.’ There’s so much of the story that we don’t know. We just see like what Hollywood shows us. But [“Hollywood Demons”] really peels back that barrier that we have. We can see everything that’s going on, and it’s really important that we do examine this, especially for future generations, the younger generation coming through.”
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These days, Ward — who has not only found mega success in the adult film industry, but has been a champion for women breaking barriers professionally and personally — has never felt more empowered.
“I think I just feel really free after all of it, just that I’ve just gotten so much of myself out there,” said Ward, who published her memoir, “Rated X: How Porn Liberated Me from Hollywood” in 2022. “I think people have a misconception about actors in general, and of course people in the adult industry in general. And I think my story is multifaceted.”
“It’s a story for every woman, every person that says, people are telling them, ‘No,’ over and over again,” she added. “They’re telling them what they should be, how they should act. We see it in everyday life. Like at any business, at any situation, people are trying to put especially women into this box. And it’s really a story of self-discovery, and just finding who you are as an authentic person in any way that you want to.”
“Hollywood Demons: Child Stars Gone Wild” premieres Monday, April 27 on Investigation Discovery. Episodes are available to stream on HBO Max.
As a Super Bowl champion quarterback, Steve Beuerlein diagnosed defenses. Now, at 61, he is using AI to help predict what kind of heart issues could arise.
Beuerlein told Fox News Digital in a recent interview that as he has gotten older, he has thought about his mortality more.
“As you get a little older, you start thinking about your mortality a little bit more,” Beuerlein told Fox News Digital in an interview with Heartflow.
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He enrolled in Heartflow’s Gamefilm registry, as the company is using revolutionary technology to help determine if someone is at risk of cardiovascular disease.
“I looked into it, did my research, and realized that what Heartflow had going as a company and their technology, which was the first of its kind, and AI-powered, completely revolutionary type of technology that went into this overall offering for detecting heart disease early-stage,” Beuerlein said.
The Pro Bowl quarterback said his dad battled cardiovascular disease for 30 years, and with that in mind, he wanted to get checked himself.
“My dad kind of battled that for the last 30 years of his life. And so, of course, I was curious as to how I matched up and went through the whole process. It was painless, non-invasive, very efficient, a very easy process to go through. And then the detail when I got through it and came back, all the information that came back was so thorough and, for me, fortunately, it was very positive,” Beuerlein said.
Beuerlein was not just impressed with how simple it was to get checked, but also how the power of the AI technology made the results so comprehensible.
“It’s amazing how simple the procedure is to go through and yet with the technology that they have, a lot of it again powered by AI, you actually sit down with a doctor after you’ve gone through the process and the results come in, and you’re literally looking at a computer,” Beuerlein said.
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“You’re seeing a 3D image of your heart, and they can rotate it around where you can see it from the front, from the rear.”
The results allow the doctors and the patient to see into all the heart’s chambers. There is a color scale that identifies the areas where plaque starts to develop.
The hard plaque is cause for immediate concern, but the buildup of soft plaque is an issue as well.
The tests allow the patient to get a baseline of their current condition and give the ability for people to be proactive with their heart health instead of reactive.
“Fifty percent of first-time heart attack or significant heart episode events happen completely by surprise. People had no way of knowing that this was going to happen, that they had these issues. And that’s what motivated Heartflow to kind of try to address it and come up with this revolutionary technology,” Beuerlein said.
“A lot of times this is progressing in people and there’s no signs, there’s no symptoms. They have no way to really know that they’re at risk.”
More information on Heartflow’s technology can be found on its website, in addition to going to any doctor or healthcare center that has a partnership with the company.
Beuerlein played in the NFL for 14 seasons. He played for the then-Los Angeles Raiders, Dallas Cowboys, Arizona Cardinals, Jacksonville Jaguars, Carolina Panthers and Denver Broncos. He was a backup quarterback when the Cowboys won the Super Bowl in 1992.
He made the Pro Bowl with the Panthers in 1999. In 147 games (102 starts), he completed 56.9% of passes for 24,046 yards, with 147 touchdowns and 112 interceptions.
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President Donald Trump infamously acknowledges he is choosing the world’s most “dangerous profession,” but surviving a third unprecedented assassination attempt — including one where he was shot in the ear — is only hardening his resolve.
“I’ve studied assassinations, and I must tell you, the most impactful people, the people that do the most” are the targets, Trump said in a Saturday night White House press briefing after an alleged would-be assassin was stopped by U.S. Secret Service at the Washington Hilton, the notorious site of former President Ronald Reagan’s shooting in 1981.
“You take a look at the people, Abraham Lincoln, I mean, you go through the people that have gone through this where they got them, but the people that do the most, the people that make the biggest impact, they’re the ones that they go after.
“They don’t go after the ones that don’t do much because they like it that way.”
In Trump’s case, three thwarted assassinations are part of his presidential lore, facing a string of shootings, plots and major security breaches unlike anything in history.
Trump cautiously admitted, “I hate to say I’m honored by that,” but noted that “the big names” and the big movers are the targets.
Saturday night’s chaos at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington adding a new entry to a list already defined by gunfire in Butler, Pa. (July 13, 2024), an armed suspect at his Florida golf club (Sept. 15, 2024) and the Secret Service discovery of a sniper’s nest in eyeshot of where Air Force One lands at Palm Beach International in Florida.
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Trump hailed the unity at the WHCA dinner in a room of some of his fiercest critics in the media, urging Americans to unify in divided political times.
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“In light of this evening’s events, I asked that all Americans recommit with their hearts and resolving our differences peacefully,” Trump said. “We have to resolve our differences.”
“I will say you had Republicans, Democrats, Independents, conservatives, liberals and progressives — those words are interchangeable, perhaps, but maybe they’re not — but yet everybody in that room, big crowd, record setting crowd. There was a record setting group of people, and there was a tremendous amount of love and coming together,” Trump continued.
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“I watched, and I was very, very impressed by that.“
Trump and first lady Melania Trump were rushed from the Washington Hilton after shots were fired outside the ballroom, where the president had been scheduled to speak.
Authorities said one officer was shot but protected by a ballistic vest, and the suspect, Cole Tomas Allen of California, was taken into custody before breaching the room.
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The three men at the center of the most serious known threats are now Thomas Matthew Crooks (Butler suspect, deceased), Ryan Wesley Routh (Palm Beach suspect, sentenced to life) and now Allen (arrested and charged Saturday night).
Crooks, 20, opened fire at the July 13, 2024, campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The FBI identified Crooks as the shooter after he hit Trump in the right ear and killed rallygoer Corey Comperatore before being shot dead by a Secret Service countersniper.
Routh, 59, received a life sentence for his attempt at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach in September 2024. Prosecutors said Secret Service agents spotted him with a rifle near the course while Trump was playing, prompting an agent to open fire before Routh could get a shot off.
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Allen, identified in Saturday night’s Washington incident, is the newest name on that list. Authorities have announced firearms and assault-related charges.
Law enforcement at a Saturday night news conference said Allen was armed with multiple weapons and allegedly fired during a rush at a security perimeter near the dinner, striking a Secret Service agent in his bullet-proof vest before being “tackled” to the ground without taking a bullet from the Secret Service.
“One officer was shot, but saved by the fact that he was wearing a obviously a very good bulletproof vest,” Trump told reporters, many still in their tuxedos, having left the canceled WHCA dinner, too. “He was shot from very close distance with a very powerful gun, and the vest did the job. I just spoke to the officer and he’s doing great. He’s great shape. He’s very high spirits, and we told him we love him and respect him.”
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Taken together, the three cases underscore how Trump’s security profile has changed from unusually fraught to historically extraordinary. One attempt drew blood on a campaign stage, another ended in a life sentence after a rifle ambush at a golf course, and the latest forced a presidential evacuation from one of Washington’s highest-profile public events.
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Trump signaled Saturday night that he does not plan to retreat from public appearances despite the repeated threats.
“The response time was really incredible. and we’re going to reschedule,” Trump said. “We’re going to do it again.”
“We’re not going to let anybody take over our society,” he added. “We’re not going to cancel things out because we can’t do that. We wanted to stay tonight.”
Other thwarted plots and security scares
Beyond the three highest-profile cases, Trump has faced a broader pattern of violent threats and close calls dating back to his first campaign.
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In June 2016, Michael Steven Sandford, a British national, allegedly tried to grab a police officer’s gun at a Trump rally in Las Vegas and later told investigators he intended to kill Trump, according to court records and contemporaneous reporting.
In March 2016, Thomas Dimassimo rushed the stage at a Dayton, Ohio, rally before Secret Service agents tackled him.
And in November 2016, Trump was briefly rushed offstage in Reno, Nevada, after someone in the crowd shouted “gun,” though authorities later said the man detained was unarmed.
Public reporting has also documented later threats not carried out at Trump’s immediate location, including a 2020 ricin letter case; a 2024 murder-for-hire plot tied to Iran; a 2017 North Dakota incident in which a man stole a forklift and aimed it toward the presidential motorcade; and a February 2026 confrontation at Mar-a-Lago in which Secret Service fatally shot a 21-year-old who was armed with a shotgun and gas canister while Trump was in Washington.
Nine people were injured in a mass shooting near Indiana University early Sunday morning.
Police responded to reports of gunfire at a celebration after the “Little 500” college cycling race in the area just before 12:30 a.m., finding “multiple wounded individuals.” Nine people were taken to local hospitals, including six by ambulance, according to WHTR.
Authorities have not detailed the extent of the victims’ injuries.
Witnesses told the outlet that the gunfire resulted from an altercation between two women at the event.
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“Two women fighting … I didn’t think too much of it,” a witness told WHTR. “I figured the police would get to it. But then I saw a girl reach toward her pants leg and start firing. By then, I was already running the other way.”
The Bloomington Police Department has yet to make any arrests in the case.
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The incident comes just a week after police identified Shamar Elkins as the suspect in a domestic violence rampage that left eight children dead and two women shot in Louisiana last week.
Shreveport Police Department Corporal Christopher Bordelon released Elkins’ identity while speaking with reporters near the crime scene Sunday evening, calling the mass shooting a “heinous crime.”
Along with the children, Elkins is accused of shooting the mother of his children, who is expected to survive, as well as another woman who is suffering from life-threatening injuries. A teenage victim also sustained injuries considered non-life-threatening.
According to investigators, the suspect first shot a woman on Harrison Street before traveling to a residence on West 79th Street, where the murders happened.
After fleeing, he allegedly carjacked a man at gunpoint near Linwood Avenue and West 79th Street before officers located the vehicle and initiated a pursuit.
The chase continued into Bossier Parish, where officers confronted the suspect and opened fire, killing him at the scene. Authorities said no officers were injured.
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Super Bowl champion uses AI to help detect for cardiovascular issues early
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