Whenever young actors are on a show for a long time, viewers get to watch them grow up, and it can be a very moving experience. The kids on Modern Family are now in their teens and twenties, and fans love seeing what they're doing.
Whether looking at her tattoos or loving her pink hair, Ariel Winter has a large fanbase who really care about her. Her time as the brilliant Alex Dunphy on the popular sitcom made her very famous, but while she was becoming well-known in Hollywood, she was struggling with her family life.
What Happened?
Ariel Winter has dealt with many tough things in her young life, including losing 30 pounds that she gained because of an anti-depressant.
Her family life has never been very happy and Winter became legally emancipated in 2015. According to Seventeen.com, Winter's mom made her start acting at four years old, and when she was 14 her sister, Shanelle Workman, became her legal guardian. This continued until she turned 17 and knew that becoming legally emancipated was the best thing for her.
According to Teen Vogue, after starring in a commercial for Cool Whip at five, Winter became Alex Dunphy at eleven years old.
As Winter said about the situation, "It has been very sad for me, but at the same time it's been much better for me emotionally and physically to be on my own and have a better, safer household and support system."
Winter and her mother don't have a relationship anymore and it sounds like it was never a healthy one. When Winter was 14, she moved out and said that her mother, Chrisoula Workman, was "physically and emotionally abusing" her.
According to E News, Winter's mom didn't give her enough food and would call her names, as well as physically harming her. It's absolutely heartbreaking to hear about this. Winter had a teacher while working on Modern Family named Sharon Sacks who spoke to The Hollywood Reporter years later and said that Winter definitely didn't have enough to eat. She explained that she would make sure that Winter had a good lunch and said, "I would order a couple lunches in my name so Ariel could eat one of them. I could tell she was hungry." This is really moving and it's great that Winter had this support.
A Difficult Time
According to Insider.com, Winter has shared how she didn't really feel like she got to be a kid since she had such a difficult time living with her mom. She was acting from such a young age and since she didn't have a loving and stable home life, that made things really hard.
She said, "I moved in with my sister when I was 14 and lived with her till [sic] I was 18. I did all the real high school things. That was amazing, that was so much fun. I kind of caught up on the childhood I didn't have because I was focusing on acting and work and everything that was leading up to this point. I missed out on a lot of the normal kid things."
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Winter said that it was "a really bad chapter" and that her mom made sure that she wore skimpy clothing even though she wasn't really old enough to do so. She mentioned short dresses and miniskirts and "low-cut" outfits. She explained, "People thought I was 24 when I was 12."
Body Shaming
Modern Family fans have noticed that as Ariel Winter has gotten older, she has started dressing differently, but that's no excuse for her mom to talk to a publication about her daughter and stir up more negative feelings.
Winter's mom was interviewed by In Touch and said, "She needs to grow up. I would tell her to dress properly, be the beautiful person she is. I feel sad that she feels the need to expose herself when it’s not necessary."
Winter tweeted that this was "toxic" and that her mom shouldn't be chatting to the media. She said, "I'm doing just fine."
The actress has talked about going to therapy and told Teen Vogue that it's about "bettering your life." She has also been honest about how she had to try different medications in order to get the correct one that didn't give her side effects.
Winter has definitely been able to move past her difficult childhood, as she started going to UCLA in the fall of 2017, according to The Hollywood Reporter. As the actress said, "Even though I wish I had a better childhood, I wouldn't trade it, because it made me who I am today."
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