Adult star and two-time AVN award winner Maitland Ward has announced that she’s signed a deal to write a “steamy, no-holds-barred” memoir of “tell-all stories of everything” that’s happened to her, from her days on the cast of The Bold and the Beautiful and Boy Meets World to her triple-X career change in 2019.
“This definitely ranks as one of my greatest achievements!” the 44-year-old performer told her 1.6 million Instagram followers.
The announcement has created quite a stir online, as the adult industry and fans of Ward’s mainstream work in Hollywood alike prepare for My Escape From Hollywood: Why I Left to Become a Porn Star—the book’s working title. It is scheduled for release in 2022 from Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster.
Ward’s editor, Michelle Herrera Mulligan, said in a press release, “Maitland’s witty, incisive voice drew all of us in from the first page…Her rare perspective on the sexism she experienced first-hand in Hollywood, and the liberation she’s found in women-produced adult entertainment, will inspire, shock, and inform a generation eager to learn her story.”
And Ward’s story is truly shocking, in a way that subverts the usual porn star narrative. She came from a successful career in Hollywood to start over in porn in the opposite of the “crossover” that many porn stars—from Traci Lords to Sasha Gray and many others—have attempted in the past, with varying degrees of success. As such, Ward has a perspective that may actually serve her colleagues in the industry well, having come from the “legitimate” acting world with a large following, she can share her view of the stigmatized world of adult entertainment with a built-in audience that may be willing to hear her out.
Ward has been a very public face for the industry since she started making porn in 2019, perhaps to some annoyance from others who have been working in the industry far longer and seen much less success. But, so far, she’s been a boon to the industry, speaking out at every opportunity about how her time in porn has been far superior, more empowering, and more artistically fulfilling. She’s even written eloquently about her experiences for the Daily Beast on several occasions, which speaks well of the skill she’ll bring to her memoir.
That writing talent appears to have helped her get her book deal. “I originally wrote some sample chapters, really funny stuff from the porn industry, like what I experienced,” she told the NY Post. And she’ll be writing the book herself, using “no ghostwriters or anything.”
Last month, Ward announced that she would be returning to mainstream acting to film a pilot for a TV show called The Big Time, about “a world-famous adult superstar.” But she was careful to note that this doesn’t mean she’ll stop making porn. “I want to slay both industries,” she told the Post. “I love and embrace both. Me being bold and free in my sexuality and so out there with it has really given me that power.”
Now, apparently, the actress will be adding mainstream publishing to her list of industries to slay.
