Ariel Winter is reflecting on her years of childhood trauma, and speaking on what she has done to move on from it.
For 11 years, the Los Angeles native, who started acting when she was only four years old, starred as middle child Alex Dunphy on the beloved ABC sitcom Modern Family.
And while on the screen, she had a loving, tight-knit family, off the screen, her real family life was unfortunately far from it.
© GettyAlleged abuse
When Ariel was 14, the Department of Child and Family Protective Services removed her from her home, and she was placed in the care of her older sister, Shanelle Gray.
Both of them accused their mother, Chrisoula Workman, of both physical and emotional abuse, which she has denied.
In 2015, when she was 17 years old, she was legally emancipated and declared an adult, and she has largely cut ties with her mother since. Announcing her legal win at the time, she tweeted: "I am now officially emancipated!!! I'm really lucky I have an amazing support system and lovely people in my life who have given me the support and guidance to have been given this wonderful opportunity."
© WireImageSpeaking out
Ten years later, speaking with People about the pains of growing up in the spotlight, and her childhood trauma, Ariel first recalled, of how her appearance was covered by tabloids: "It was every headline I read about myself, like, grown people writing articles about me saying how I looked terrible or pregnant or like a fat slut. I mean, I was 14," adding: "It totally damaged my self-esteem."
"I understood what it was like to be hated," she went on, and emphasized: "No matter what I was going through, I was a target. It made it very difficult to look at myself in the mirror and go, 'I love this version of me.'"
© Getty ImagesAddressing her past allegations of abuse against her mother, Ariel nonetheless maintained: "I went on to have a great rest of my teenage years thanks to being under [my sister's] custody.
Still, she added that her "entire childhood" is a source of trauma, and that: "It's a really deep, painful, sore, sore part for me that's so much deeper and bigger than I've ever felt ready to talk about."
© GettyLeaving Los Angeles
After years of growing up and working in Los Angeles, Ariel has moved out of the city, along with her boyfriend Luke Benward and their six dogs.
Though she maintained she hasn't left the industry, she does appreciate the domesticity of her new life outside of Hollywood. "I just left the city of L.A. It holds some not-great memories for me, and I'm young and never lived anywhere else, and thought, 'Why not?' If you're no longer on a network show that shoots there, you don't really have to be there, and if I get a network show, I can easily go back," she shared.
