Dan Benson is another of Disney's many "broken toys," an endless list of young performers who acted in series or movies and saw their career not only take away their childhood, but also leave them with psychological problems.
But he, unlike other young actors, was able to turn this "traumatic experience" into a way of life. Benson explained in a TikTok video how he became a porn star after starting his career with the Mickey Mouse company.
@danleebenson I tripped and fell into adult entertainment. #disney #disneychannel #wizardsofwaverlyplace #adultenteratinment #accountant #zeke ♬ original sound - Dan Benson
Benson's path to adult entertainment all started when he was between 19 and 25 years old while playing Zeke Beakerman in the Disney Channel series Wizards of Waverly Place (2006-2012), starring Selena Gomez:
Basically, when I was on the show Wizards of Waverly Place, I would get messages from people all the time, some of those being women that I found incredibly attractive. 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.
However, Benson did not immediately discover the deception. He did so shortly thereafter and that was the trigger for his "traumatic experience." Not only from finding out that nude photos and videos of him "all over the web" had been uploaded without his consent, but also from seeing his unsuccessful attempts to remove all digital traces of those files.
From almost losing his job to starting an OnlyFans account
The interpreter recalls that these images had a "very big, negative impact" on his life. And in fact, thanks to them he "almost lost" a job he had gotten after retiring from acting. However, years later, tired of these photos continuing to sour his life, he decided to take advantage of it:
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, my — you know what I mean — I decided to say, "All right, screw you, I’m gonna sell it myself."
Once he made this decision, his next steps were clear: open an OnlyFans account with the intention of "supporting the LGBT+ community." There, he found a new way of life: "I’ve been having a tremendous amount of fun. I've met a lot of great people in the adult entertainment industry, and it’s changed my life for the better," he said.
