'I don't like feeling watched': Modern Family star Ariel Winter on leaving LA
PHOTO: Twitter/ty_dead
PUBLISHED ONMay 12, 2022 4:06 AM
Ariel Winter did herself "a service" by leaving Los Angeles.
The 24-year-old actress - who is best known for play Alex Dunphy in the ABC comedy series Modern Family - has moved to a new city, but she hasn't divulged where, and admits she felt the need to depart LA because didn't like being pictured and isn't "interested" in fame.
Speaking on her former co-star Julie Bowen's Quitters podcast, she said: "Part of the reason I always hated LA was because I have been followed by paparazzi for a very long portion of my life.
"I really, really dislike having my space invaded. I don't like pictures of me [that] I haven't signed up for. I don't like feeling watched.
"I've always just wanted to live a very normal life, have a normal existence and I never really felt like I could do that.
"Everywhere I went, someone was taking 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.
"Everyone deserves privacy and to share what they want to share about themselves … [People] think, 'Oh, you have money … just take that and accept it.' No. I did myself a service by leaving LA."
In Dec, Ariel told how she was called a "fat s***" by her critics when she was just 13.
The star - who was just 11 years old when she joined Modern Family - said: "I got called a fat s*** when I was 13. That was rough. Because I gained weight and my body changed, I had to wear different outfits and I wore a dress that had a cut-out [on my chest]. And the headlines were dark. 'Fat s***' was rough for me, and it continued."
Ariel said some hate comments even came from people claiming to be her fans, because they wanted her to be more like the character she played on TV.
She added: "It was the fans, some of them - we have lovely, lovely fans, but some of them were also hard on me in the way they loved Alex Dunphy. And because I wasn't Alex Dunphy and didn't look like Alex, I didn't want to dress like Alex… I was just different in that way. I'm not my character.
"From them, they're like, 'How did you go from Alex Dunphy to being, like, a whore? You're trying to be sexy, you're 13, you're a horrible role model. What are you showing people? You got so fat on TV, now you look so fat.'"
