Ariel Winter about moving out of LA to get away from paparazzi, tabloid culture
Ariel Winter has said goodbye to Los Angeles for her common sense.
The actress appeared on Modern Family mother Julie Bowens podcast Switches to discuss how she recently sold her house, packed a U-Haul, and moved out of Hollywood with her boyfriend, Luke Benward, and dogs. The 24-year-old’s complicated relationship with fame is behind the move. She said that having spent most of her life in the spotlight has made her tired of being tracked down by paparazzi and having the pictures used to spark negative gossip stories about her.
“Part of the reason I always hated LA was that I’ve been followed by paparazzi for a very long part of my life,” said Winter, who got the role of Alex Dunphy at the age of 11. “I can really, really do not like to have my space.invaded.I do not like pictures of me [that] I have not signed up. I do not like to feel monitored. I’ve always just wanted to live a very normal life, have a normal life, and I never really felt like I could do that. Everywhere I went, someone took my picture. I’m just not that person. Fame and all that is not something I’m interested in. I just want to live as normal a life as I can. “
Winter traced the start of the negative paparazzi and tabloid attention to 2012, when her then-mother, Chrisoula Workman, initially lost custody of her due to allegations that she had been violent. The personal saga unfolded for years with Winter’s sister, Shanelle Gray, who became her guardian before she was released.
She called it “really traumatic” that 30 paparazzi followed her on a daily basis from the age of 14, shouting things and hoping to provoke a reaction to their photos. That trauma continued as she grew into a woman in the spotlight, where she had pictures of her body examined and ashamed. She said paparazzi have continued to follow her today in hopes of catching her “f *** up”. She said everything gets a “negative” twist and gets spun into “lies”.
“I do not feel comfortable walking my dog down the street” in LA, the dog lover said. “If my dog escapes on a leash, I can not say, ‘What the hell are you going to do back here!’ It will be [turned into]: ‘Ariel Winter, rescue lawyer, screaming and abusive dog’, when I’m really just trying not to let my dog get hit on the street. Everything I do is scrutinized. “
Now that she officially moved to her new city and did not identify it to preserve her privacy, “it’s the principle for me to be [like]: ‘Haha, you do not get mad at me.’ What I want to put out there is what gets laid out there. I never wanted everyone to know everything about my life. I’m not a very open person. I want privacy, and I’ve never really had the privacy to just live my life. “
As for critics who will inevitably say that paparazzi and tabloid attention go hand in hand with being a star, “This sounds aggressive, but really damn,” she said. “Until you’ve experienced it, you do not understand it … Just because you have signed up to create something does not mean that you sign up to have your life invaded and taken from you … You should be in able to choose what you share. “
She added: “There are people OK with sharing everything in their lives – and I respect that. But it should be a choice. I want you to see my work and my characters. That’s what many people get in industry for … Everyone deserves privacy and to share what they want to share about themselves … [People] think, Oh, you have money … just take it and accept it. No. I did myself a favor by leaving LA “
Winter also talked about having been in therapy for 10 years, which has helped her navigate not just in her family trauma and relationship with Benward, an old friend she started a romantic relationship with in 2020, but in unpacking how it was to come of age on TV in the era of social media and, horribly enough, to become fat-ashamed at the age of 13.
She said that the “fat slut” comments that people made about her led her to initially change things about herself. But when I turned 18, I realized that every time I changed, there was still something new [people] hated about me. I was just like, ‘Okay, so they’ll never be happy. That’s what it is. ‘ As I got older, I almost got into an argument. “
But what stuck with her was how “people feel comfortable” with making the bad comments in the first place. She looks at her nieces now – who are the same age as she went through much of it – and said it’s’ devastating for me to see the trickle-down effect … to see them experience the same fear and discomfort by itself as I did. Even though it’s on a smaller scale, it does not matter … It hurts in my heart. “
Winter said she will return to LA when work calls. In fact, right after she moved, now two months ago, she was hired to replace Demi Lovato in the pilot Hungry. She probably even gets an apartment there to live in when she’s in town to work.
As for life in her new city, Winter said, “It’s just so different,” in the best way. “It makes me so happy to know that life is just going to be the way I always hoped it would be.”
As a 24-year-old, she begins “only now the journey with: What do I want? What do I need?” and in this “new chapter” she does not want to be “the person remembered for the outfit they wore,” but for the good things she does. “
Plus, “I do not want to get to 30 and still not feel healed and still not feel peace in myself.”