The 35-year-old actor played Zeke Beakerman on the Disney Channel show.
Former child star Dan Benson is opening up about his transition from the Disney Channel to adult entertainment. The 35-year-old actor, who played Zeke Beakerman on the Wizards of Waverly Place, explained his unexpected career change in a TikTok video over the weekend.
In a video captioned, "I tripped and fell into adult entertainment," Benson stars off by explaining that when he was getting attention for his role on the Selena Gomez-led series, he began getting messages from "women that I found incredibly attractive" online.
"Turns out, messaging those women, who turned out not to be who they said they were, turned out to be not the best idea," he admitted, noting he sent them "nude photos" that they would then post online.
Benson said that discovering his nude images were "all over the internet" was a "pretty traumatic experience." He said he spent years trying to get them wiped from the Internet and that he "did not want them out there."
"I ended up almost losing my job later in life because of that after I retired from acting," he said of the nude photo leak. "It had a very big, negative impact on my life."
But after years of battling this invasion of privacy, Benson noted, "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, my... you know what I mean. I decided to say, 'Alright, screw you. I'm going to sell it myself.'"
He said that after a year of working in the adult entertainment industry, he's been "having a tremendous amount of fun," saying the transition has "changed my life for the better."
@danleebenson I tripped and fell into adult entertainment. #disney #disneychannel #wizardsofwaverlyplace #adultenteratinment #accountant #zeke ♬ original sound - Dan Benson
Benson played Zeke from 2007 to 2012 on the Disney series. His last credited acting role was in 2018. He is now an OnlyFans model.
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