Ariel’s secret weapon
How she hit back at her haters
Slut, fat, trashy, ugly … The cruel words litter Ariel Winter’s Instagram feed every time she proudly posts a photo of her 1.55m frame. For years, the Modern
Family actress says the taunts cut deep.
“It was really disappointing that people would hate me so much for dressing how I wanted to,” the 20-year-old says. “I tried to change myself for a really long time, but people just kept hating on me no matter what I did. I decided those people are going to be rude to me regardless of what I do, so I should just try to be happy with what I am.”
Now, instead of responding in kind, Ariel has taken a new tack with her social-media haters, showering them with kindness instead. The star says, “It’s difficult to not write something sassy, but I feel better when I write something positive.”
The good vibes never fail to boost her spirits and, she explains, “Maybe they’ll not write something hurtful next time.”
She might have only left her teens behind in January,
but it seems like Ariel has already packed a lifetime into her first two decades.
After landing a role on a TV commercial at the age of four, she leap-frogged into acting and it was as a skinny 11-year-old, playing bookworm Alex Dunphy on the hit Three comedy
ModernFamily, that the world suddenly sat up and took notice.
A year later, when Ariel started developing curves, however, a lot of the attention turned toxic.
“I started trying to dress for my body and was called a slut or a fat hooker,” she says. “It got even worse as I was turning 13, 14 and 15. It really took so much of my self-esteem.”
Years of angst and crashdieting followed, and as Ariel’s bust size swelled to a large F cup, the relentless focus on her body shape became unbearable.
“Everyone was so focused on my cleavage and I used to have full-scale meltdowns in bathing-suit shops because there was nothing I could find to wear.”
In 2015, at the age of 17, Ariel underwent a breast reduction. “It helped me feel so much better about my body,” she confides. But ultimately, she realised that the best thing she could do was to feel proud of herself, no matter what the online trolls said to try to bring her down.
These days, Ariel is one of the most outspoken body-positive actresses in Hollywood, defiantly pushing the message that if people don’t like what she wears, “they can unfollow me and follow someone who covers every part of their body to their toes”.
It’s that same steely determination that saw her make another surprising choice in her mid-teens, when she became legally emancipated from her estranged mother Crystal Workman amid allegations of physical and emotional abuse. Her sister Shanelle Workman, 39, was named her legal guardian in May 2014.
Ariel has since publicly spoken about how the choices her mother made for her made her feel oversexualised in the entertainment industry.
“She would dress me in the smallest miniskirts, sailor suits, low-cut things and the shortest dresses you’ve ever seen,” she says. “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 1000% said yes.”
Ariel also claims that she wasn’t allowed to make friends with girls “because females are competition”, that her food intake was “restricted” and that her education was neglected to prioritise the demands of Hollywood.
A reconciliation between the pair seems unlikely as, last September, Crystal fired back at her famous daughter on TV show DrPhil, saying, “I don’t know what she is talking about. I really don’t. She wants the headlines. She craves attention. If that means throwing your
mother under the bus, hurting her and breaking her heart, she’s going to do it.”
Yet despite the drama, Ariel is thriving. Last year, she starred opposite Hollywood legend Burt Reynolds in the movie DogYears and she’s started fitting in studies at the University of California around her ModernFamily schedule. She’s also making time for her beau, 30-year-old Canadian actor Levi Meaden.
“I grew up a lot earlier than I should have, so it feels like I’m a lot older,” tells Ariel. “Being with an older guy isn’t always amazing, but I got lucky. I have an amazing guy who’s super-supportive, loving and is just an all-round wonderful human being.
“He always tells me how special I am inside. He loves me through thick and thin, and he always tells me, no matter what I’m wearing, no matter what I’m doing, that I’m beautiful.”