Maitland Ward is pulling back the curtain on what she describes as a deeply unsettling experience growing up in Hollywood — and she’s not sugarcoating it.

In a new interview tied to her upcoming appearance on Hollywood Demons, the former Boy Meets World star says the industry didn’t just shape young actors — it manufactured them.

“I think it was such a factory kind of environment. Like you were just a product being sold, and you knew that yourself,” Ward told Fox News Digital. “I have to be professional. I have to be part of that Hollywood machine. And that’s really what it was.”

That idea — of being treated less like a person and more like a commodity — is at the center of Ward’s story. Looking back, she says the expectations placed on young performers, especially women, were both confusing and damaging, even if they felt “normal” at the time.

“I didn’t think anything was wrong at the time… but I thought that was just me being stupid,” she admitted, describing the pressure to suppress discomfort in order to succeed.

Now 49, Ward says revisiting those experiences for Hollywood Demons has been both eye-opening and, surprisingly, healing.

“It was very therapeutic to tell the story… about my young self coming up in a business that thought of her as a product,” she explained, adding that many young actors faced similar treatment before being “cast… aside when they didn’t.”

Ward also pointed to the impossible standards young women were expected to meet in the late ‘90s and early 2000s — a contradiction she says was baked into the system.

“You had to be this young woman that was either, a virgin and a slut all at once,” she said. “And I hate to use those terms exactly, but that’s what it was.”

She even drew comparisons to the way pop stars like Britney Spears were marketed at the time, arguing that the industry pushed a “twisted male gaze” that didn’t necessarily reflect what audiences actually wanted.

“It was all for this like twisted male gaze that Hollywood was just inflicting on everybody,” Ward said, noting that performers were often told, “this is what the audience wants,” even if that wasn’t the reality.

Her time on Boy Meets World — where she joined the cast as Rachel McGuire — now looks different in hindsight, too. Ward has previously spoken about being “sexualized” on the show, and says certain moments feel especially uncomfortable when revisited.

“I didn’t realize all of the innuendos… and I think the writers… really enjoyed playing with that, but then it could not be on my terms,” she said in a past interview, adding that at the time, “we all just thought it was normal.”

That normalization, she says, is exactly why shows like Hollywood Demons matter now.

“There’s so much of the story that we don’t know. We just see what Hollywood shows us,” Ward said. “But [the show] really peels back that barrier… and it’s really important that we do examine this.”

These days, Ward says she feels more in control of her narrative than ever — and hopes her story resonates beyond Hollywood.

“It’s a story for every woman… people are telling them what they should be, how they should act,” she said. “And it’s really a story of self-discovery.”

Hollywood Demons: Child Stars Gone Wild premieres Monday, April 27 on Investigation Discovery, with episodes streaming on HBO Max.