‘He would lure me in’: Maitland Ward says her ‘Bold and the Beautiful’ co-star Dylan Neal ‘groomed’ her on sets
HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA: Maitland ward confesses when she came to Hollywood as a teen in the mid-90 she caught herself in a real off-screen drama. Maitland Ward is famously known for her role in 'Bold and the Beautiful' and her relationship with her co-star Dylan Neal who is seven years older than her, says "he was very much a pull-and-push kind of person." Ward details her relationship in her memoir, 'Rated X: How Porn Liberated Me from Hollywood.'
“I thought it was like, ‘Oh, he really likes me, he thinks I’m so great.’ He was very much a pull-and-push kind of person,” Maitland told Page Six. “He would lure me in and we’d do fun things together and then he would push me away and be like, ‘What are you doing? Why are you like this?’” The actress recalls her time and says, "It was more of a grooming situation, and she claims it didn't have anything "necessarily to do with sex but he would do things to lead me on that would make me very attached to him and only him and she didn't see it that time."
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Maitland Ward who now works in the adult film industry says in her memoir, 'Rated X,' how she immediately charmed Dylan Neal after securing her first role in 'Bold and the Beautiful'. Then 16 year old ward shared a forbidden relationship with 24 year old Neal and says it was a strange relationship, “He was very punishing to me if I ever stepped out of line in any way” and “wanted to be a guide for me in my career.” Ward lost her virginity to Neal on camera and writes in her memoir, neal would suggest how Ward should appear when her character lost her virginity on the soap opera.
“‘Big day,’ he said with a smile as I walked onto the set where it would happen, his college dorm room, after a party where we would both get caught up in something we weren’t supposed to. He kept commenting to hair and makeup how I was too done up, and I didn’t look sweet enough or innocent. ‘It’s her first time; you don’t want her to look like she gets around,’” Ward recalls of the time. She said he suggested to the makeup artist her bright lipstick makes her look "womanly" and the artist accepted Neal's concern and toned down to a lighter shade for the crucial role. “They changed me so I would be more comfortable, which made Dylan more comfortable instead,” she writes.
Boy Meets World actress said, “I was just new to Hollywood and I was like, ‘Wow, this sexy co-star of mine,’ and I was just so enthralled with this whole fairytale idea of it all," Ward added. She went on to say that she doesn't understand why he never realized I was younger than him. But soon after Ward got her Wake up call while was doing a press interview. “Once, Dylan sat in on an interview that I had with one of the soap magazines. He helped me answer all the questions, which I thought was cute, but the journalist later said how uncomfortable he felt for me having to sit there under Dylan’s watch while he gave what should’ve been my answers,” she recalls. Shortly after Ward realized Neal was responsible for all her moves.
The return of Neal’s girlfriend, Southwell, (who he is now married to and share two children) made it easier for Ward to distance herself from him. Then Ward eventually departed “The Bold and the Beautiful” in 1996, the same year Neal tied the knot with Southwell. The actress then alleges she never spoke to him again until she was auditioning for ‘Boy Meets World' and saw each other but "Neil acted like he didn’t know me, really and I haven’t spoken to him since," she told Page Six. She calls her experience and says, "It was just an interesting situation that, I don’t know, I just think he liked him to be the hero for me.”
