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Adult star Maitland Ward, previously best known for a recurring role on Boy Meets World, is slamming Euphoria for the “troubling” and “depressing” portrayal of OnlyFans creators, through the character played by Sydney Sweeney.
Sweeney, 28, was previously nominated for an Emmy for her portrayal of Cassie, an aimless bombshell willing to do whatever she feels is necessary to get love, or, more often, attention and now cash. In this controversial third season of Sam Levinson’s HBO hit, which includes a five-year time jump from the previously high school focused seasons, Cassie is an up-and-coming starlet on OnlyFans, the subscriber-based platform most widely known for adult content.
“To take someone so traditionally blonde and beautiful with the biggest boobs and dress her up as a dog and baby is really bizarre, but at the same time so expected in Hollywood,” Ward, 49, told Variety of Cassie’s earlier scenes filming roleplaying content.
The White Chicks actress found the baby scene, in particular, to be “beyond troubling,” particularly “in the climate we’re in.”
That “serves to perpetuate stereotypes that sex workers have no moral compass and that they will do anything for money,” said Ward. “And there’s always this untrue stigma that somehow sex work is synonymous with sex trafficking and abuse. And they just said, let’s make a joke of it. That is so funny. I’m not laughing.”
Longtime OnlyFans creator Sydney Leathers told Variety that “the age-play stuff,” as it’s portrayed, “is not even allowed” on the platform, which made the scene all the more “infuriating.”
Levinson, 41, previously told The Hollywood Reporter he “wanted to always find … the other layer of absurdity” in those scenes. He felt that absurdity was evident not in Cassie’s costumes, but that her housekeeper was filming her content, and he wanted the later OnlyFans scenes to exemplify “how depressing it is” to be in Cassie’s new life.
“It’s not being taken seriously,” said Ward. “It reminds me of when I pranced around in lingerie on Boy Meets World. It’s just the guys in the writer’s room coming up with their fantasies.”
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Jami Ganz; New York Daily News; (TNS) || ©2026 New York Daily News. Visit at nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
