Tragic Details About Modern Family's Ariel Winter

This article includes discussion of child abuse and neglect. 

For Ariel Winter, "Modern Family" brought about both the best and worst of times for her. On the bright side, it helped the former child actor find her chosen family in the people who worked on the show. Appearing on "Good Morning America" in 2019, Winter gushed about her co-workers, "They're basically a family I grew up with — the crew, the cast, everybody — so it is crazy to be doing something for that long because most shows don't go that long, and we are so beyond lucky that we have." Likewise, when she spoke to E! News in 2024, the actor admitted that although everyone's busy schedules prevented them from talking daily, they still managed to stay in regular touch.

In particular, Winter has been best friends with her onscreen brother Nolan Gould ever since their first day on set together as children. The TV star found a brother for life in him since Gould experienced the same trials and tribulations that she had as a child actor. Meanwhile, her onscreen sister Sarah Hyland also became her IRL sister. When Hyland tied the knot with Wells Adams in 2022, her officiant and onscreen uncle Jesse Ferguson shared a snap of the bride chatting with Winter on his Instagram Stories, captioning it, "Sisters for-eves," per People. While the show's success undoubtedly had a positive effect on Winter's career, it also made her life infinitely harder in many ways.

The List reached out to Dr. Sanam Hafeez, NYC neuropsychologist and the director of Comprehend the Mind, for her thoughts on how being thrust into global fame so young negatively affected the actor in the long run. 

During a 2016 chat with ABC News, Ariel Winter confessed that although she was incredibly passionate about acting as an adult, she still felt "pushed into" the craft as a child since her parents had all but decided on her career path before she even came into the world. As a result, it's unsurprising that the voice actor has complex feelings about her childhood fame. In an interview with Self magazine, the following year, Winter acknowledged, "Growing up in the spotlight was quite possibly the worst for my self-esteem." She added, "I had a hard time finding confidence within myself." 

The actor's body developed as she grew older on "Modern Family," and people openly made negative comments about it. While the online bullies slut-shamed Winter and commented on her fluctuating weight, media outlets added to the negativity with headlines that made it seem like she was dressing provocatively, completely ignoring the fact that the "Modern Family" star was a teenager at the time. 

Meanwhile, when she appeared on "Red Table Talk: The Estefans" in 2021, Winter recalled how some fans heavily criticized her for how her body naturally looked as a 13-year-old and labeled her as a bad role model for not dressing like her nerdy onscreen counterpart, Alex Dunphy. As an impressionable youngster, she felt compelled to change herself to avoid the negativity. However, Winter has totally transformed since "Modern Family" and no longer pays the haters any mind. As the actor explained to E! News in 2019, she eventually realized that she would never live up to people's impossible ideals and started posting whatever she wanted on social media rather than trying to do so.

In 2017, Ariel Winter shared the truth about her complicated relationship with her mother, Crystal Workman, in an interview with  The Hollywood Reporter. The actor confirmed that Workman sacrificed her own wellbeing, supposedly to further her daughter's burgeoning acting career. In addition to strictly controlling Winter's diet to ensure that she ate very scarcely, Workman also took her out to parties that would last into the early morning hours, ignoring that she had to show up to set first thing the following day. Likewise, according to the "Modern Family" star, Workman sexualized her by dressing her in inappropriate clothing at a younger age, pointing out, "People thought I was 24 when I was 12. If there was going to be a nude scene when I was that age, my mother would have a thousand percent said yes." Additionally, Winter's mom wasn't too interested in ensuring that she received a proper education either. 

To better understand how Workman's alleged abuse impacted Winter's mental health, we tapped into the expertise of Dr. Sanam Hafeez, NYC neuropsychologist and the director of Comprehend the Mind, who professed that someone in the former child actor's position would likely deal with self-esteem issues since they believed that their self-worth didn't extend beyond their looks. According to Dr. Hafeez, such children may also have to deal with anxiety and chronic stress resulting from the inability to meet a parent's unbelievably high standards. The expert further asserted, "As they mature they may find it hard to trust others in relationships because their understanding of love and approval was based on performance rather than authentic connection."

In October 2012, 34-year-old Shanelle Gray requested the Los Angeles court to make her the guardian of her younger sister, Ariel Winter. In the following month, attorney Michael Kretzmer stood before a judge and claimed that Winter had nearly lost her lucrative "Modern Family" gig because of her mother, Crystal Workman's, erratic behavior. Additionally, he claimed that the sitcom's cast and crew had to secretly feed Winter because of how much her mother restricted her food intake.  

According to People, Kretzmer further alleged that Workman had physically abused her daughter, detailing, "The child is, apparently, slapped, hit, pushed — not so as to leave marks." In addition to denying ever abusing her daughter, Workman pushed back against the filing by claiming that the then-14-year-old was only trying to get back at her for strongly opposing her relationship with her 18-year-old boyfriend. Ultimately, Gray became Winter's legal guardian, and she was subsequently legally emancipated from Workman too. 

During an exclusive chat with The List, neuropsychologist Dr. Sanam Hafeez elaborated on how emancipation likely set the then-child actor on the road to healing. First, it helps return a semblance of control and helps the child make the decisions that serve their best interests without any external pressure from their abuser. "The process enables victims to leave behind the damaging surroundings of their abusive parent and therefore escape the harmful situation," Dr. Hafeez clarified. "The newfound freedom enables individuals to make personal decisions and choose important interventions like therapy to heal from their trauma."

If you or someone you know may be the victim of child abuse, please contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.

In a 2020 interview with Teen Vogue, Ariel Winter revealed that she had been religiously attending weekly therapy sessions since she was about 15 years old. While her sessions had greatly aided the former child star in her mental health journey, Winter stressed that she didn't see them as a "cure" since she didn't believe she was going because she was ill in any way. Instead, the actor saw therapy as a means to become a better version of herself. However, her journey hadn't been without its struggles since it took a lot of trial and error to find a mental health medication combination that helped her feel her best. "Some of them have really negative side effects, and it can be really disheartening to take something that's supposed to make you feel better but it makes you feel ten times worse," she said. 

Winter also touched on her struggles during a November 2023 episode of the "Broad Ideas with Rachel Bilson & Olivia Allen" podcast. The "Modern Family" alum admitted to initially being a bit iffy about taking multiple pills. However, she eventually realized that she shouldn't feel bad about it since the different medications made her feel much better overall. Later, when Winter accepted the Legacy Youth Leadership Award the following year, she acknowledged that her struggles with finding her purpose in life exacerbated her mental health issues. However, after learning that she had an intrinsic desire to help people, the voice actor aligned herself with a charity that helped catch sexual predators on the Internet, and her work with them helped her better understand her life goals.

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

In 2017, "Modern Family" star Ariel Winter's life changed after she made a major surgery decision. After years of struggling with being well-endowed, the actor decided to undergo breast reduction surgery, which made her bra size go from a 32F to a 34D. Speaking to Glamour that same year, the voice actor divulged that shopping for clothes gradually became a total nightmare because of her breast size. Specifically, when Winter went looking for a red carpet outfit as a young adult or teenager, she would always have to go for a more tightly-fitted choice that wasn't always age-appropriate. 

After attending a star-studded event in these outfits, she would always see headlines claiming that she was putting her breasts on display on purpose. Of course, internet trolls hopped on the bandwagon and negatively commented on her body too. Likewise, in a 2016 TIME essay, Winter voiced her frustrations with the discourse surrounding her outfits, writing, "The conversation became about my looks instead of my talent and work — everything that I didn't want." In fact, the former child star's inbox from those days was often filled with highly inappropriate messages from adult men. 

Having larger breasts also negatively affected her career prospects because Winter didn't exactly fit into the physical description for more age-appropriate roles. As she clarified to ABC News in 2016, her larger breasts affected her physically too. "I couldn't sit up straight. It was always super uncomfortable for me to sleep. It was uncomfortable to sit. It was uncomfortable to walk," the actor sadly lamented. Given all this, it's unsurprising that Winter felt infinitely better after the surgery.