How Disney Turned A Child Star To A Porn Career

Former Disney star Dan Benson tells his social media followers he "tripped and fell" into porn.

By Michileen Martin | Updated

disney star
Future adult entertainment star Dan Benson on Wizards of Waverly Place

Dan Benson — best known as the former Disney Channel star who played the nerdy yet cool Zeke Beakerman on the fantasy teen sitcom Wizards of Waverly Place — says that first he was a victim of porn, but now he thrives on it. In his most recent message to his 174,000 followers on TikTok, Benson says he “tripped and fell” into the adult entertainment industry, and he couldn’t be happier. The 35-year-old says he was once a victim of predatory strangers who posted his nude images online, and that he joined the porn industry after choosing to “lean into” what those strangers had taken from him.

@danleebenson I tripped and fell into adult entertainment. #disney #disneychannel #wizardsofwaverlyplace #adultenteratinment #accountant #zeke ♬ original sound – Dan Benson

From 2007-12, as noted by IMDb, Dan Benson showed up in all four seasons of Wizards of Waverly Place. On his TikTok, Benson says that while he was a Disney star, he often received messages from admirers, including from women who found him “incredibly attractive.” He sent nude photos to some of these catfishers, and that ended up starting a lot of problems.

“Turns out, messaging those women — who turned out not to be who they said they were — was not the best idea, because I would send nude photos to them, and they would take those nude photos and then post them onto online websites.”

-Dan Benson

The former Disney star says those compromising photos caused him no end of headache, including apparently nearly getting him fired from a job after he’d already retired from acting. He understandably called this a “traumatic experience,” and when he attempted to have the photos scrubbed off the web, he found it a next-to-impossible task.

Rather than cry over the proverbial spilled milk, the Disney Channel star covered himself in that milk and rubbed it all over his body in revealing photos and videos (figuratively speaking… and maybe literally too, we’re not sure).

“Eventually I decided to stop fighting against it and instead go the other direction and completely lean into it. Instead of letting these people sell my privacy… I decided to say, ‘All right, screw you, I’m gonna sell it myself.’”

-Dan Benson

Apparently, business is good for Dan Benson, who uses TikTok to support his ventures by posting — among other things — thirst traps for his followers.

@danleebenson What do i do for a living now? 😈 mwahaha #accountant #gay #gaytiktok #evillaugh #disneychannelthrowbacks ♬ original sound – nic teran

Benson doesn’t seem to have many regrets about going from Disney star to porn star. He told his followers he’s been having “a tremendous amount of fun” since making the leap into the adult entertainment industry and that it’s changed his life “for the better.”

Benson isn’t the only former Disney star to go into adult entertainment without regrets. In September Boy Meets World star Maitland Ward published her memoir X: How Porn Liberated Me from Hollywood. Ward says she makes 10 times what she used to make as a sitcom star, and that she has much more creative freedom than she did as a mainstream Hollywood actress.