Modern Family star Ariel Winter plays a teenage daughter loved and adored by her wacky on-screen parents. But in real life, the 19-year-old claims she’s had to deal with an absent father, and mother who selfishly used her to live out her own Hollywood fantasies.
In a revealing interview in The Hollywood Reporter, Winter claims that her mom physically and emotionally abused her as a young child, and starting at the tender age of seven, was forced into skimpy and sexual clothing to win roles. “The smallest miniskirts, sailor suits, low-cut things, the shortest dresses you’ve ever seen. People thought I was 24 when I was 12,” Winter told THR. “If there was going to be a nude scene when I was that age, my mother would have a thousand percent said yes.”
To make sure she would fit into the tight and revealing outfits, mom Crystal Workman greatly restricted what her daughter could eat, forcing her to starve on the bare minimum of nutrients. It didn’t take long for people on set to notice Winter was starving. “I would order a couple lunches in my name so Ariel could eat one of them. I could tell she was hungry,” Sharon Sacks, her on-set teacher, said. “Boiled chicken and cucumbers isn’t going to do it for a growing kid.” As her daughter’s star meter rose, Workman piggybacked off her to enjoy the celebrity lifestyle, even as it risked Winter her health.
