When actor Dan Benson was working on the Disney Channel show The Wizard of Waverly Place, he often received nude pictures of women.
In exchange, he would send back nudes of himself, he said over the weekend.
“It was a pretty traumatic experience,” Benson, 35, said in a video previously posted to his TikTok about how he “tripped and fell” into doing adult entertainment.
“And for years I’ve been trying to keep them off the internet because obviously I didn’t want them out there,” he said.
Benson, who was in his early 20s while the show was in production from 2007 to 2012, said he nearly lost his job because of the photos. He was essentially forced into retirement from acting.
In “Wizards of Waverly Place,” starring Selena Gomez, he played Sieg Beakerman, a recurring geek-yet-cool geek during the show’s four-season run.
After the show ended in 2012, Benson saw little work, landing minor parts in smaller TV shows and indie films. For his most notable role, he didn’t show his face at all. He voiced in three episodes of the animated series ‘Rick and Morty’.
But since then, Benson said he has made up his mind to stop fighting “against”. [the rogue nudes] Instead, go in the opposite direction and lean in completely. ”
Last year, Benson launched the OnlyFans page to sell subscription access to nude photos and videos of himself.
“Instead of letting these people sell my privacy, I decided to say, ‘Damn, I’m going to sell myself instead,'” he said. “It changed my life for the better.”
Benson joins Bella Thorne and Maitland Ward in a list of actors breaking into the previously family-friendly adult entertainment industry.
Thorne co-starred with Zendaya in Disney’s “Shake It Up.” From 2010 to 2013. In 2019, he directed an adult film for the porn site Pornhub. She also has her OnlyFans page that earns millions of dollars.
Ward appeared in the final two seasons of ABC’s Boy Meets World after the network merged with Disney. The series eventually found syndication on Disney Channel. Ward claimed in an editorial in the New York Post that the show’s predominantly male producers tried on lingerie in front of her. doing.
“Not wearing clothes on your own terms is very different from being naked for someone else,” writes Ward, who also has an OnlyFans presence.