She started modeling at the age of 13, leaving school and moving to New York to do so, deciding to try her hand at acting several years later. After a few years of small TV jobs, she landed her first main role as the heroine on Aaron Spelling's daytime soap opera Sunset Beach, where she played the virginal heroine Meg Cummings.

In 1999, wanting to pursue a movie career, she had a radical image makeover, both of her physical image (including breast implants and other cosmetic surgery) and of her personality as portrayed in the press (from a "good girl" image to a wild child persona based on provocative interviews). Ward's first movie was in 2000, in the erotic thriller The In Crowd, in which she appeared nude and performed sex scenes including lesbian oral sex. The movie flopped in theaters but, not surprisingly, had some success on cable and home video.

The following year, Ward played a small role in the hit movie Shallow Hal. She has also acted in three other straight-to-video and made-for-cable movies, and has guest starred in four TV series, most notably Friends.