Ariel Winter recently opened up about the traumatic experience of being preyed upon by older men as a child actress in Hollywood.
The Modern Family alumna discussed her experience while promoting the YouTube true crime docuseries SOSA Undercover in which she appears; the online show follows members of the Safe from Online Sex Abuse nonprofit organization as they work with law enforcement to uncover and apprehend perpetrators of sexual abuse and sex trafficking.
“I am familiar with male predators because I worked in Hollywood at a young age, I started at age 4,” she told the U.K.’s Daily Mail.
She continued, “I don’t wanna say too much about it, but by the time I was on a laptop and cell phone, I was getting inappropriate messages from older men, and it caused trauma.”
As a result, Winter said she sought professional help: “The experiences I had in person and online as a child have affected me so deeply that I’ve had to go to therapy for it. The movie and TV industry is a dark place.”
Winter first rose to fame portraying brainiac middle child Alex Dunphy in the popular ABC mockumentary-style sitcom about a chaotic yet loving extended family, a part she landed at just 11 years old. Her experience unfortunately echoes what many young starlets have detailed about their time growing up in the public eye of the entertainment industry, including Jenna Ortega, who shared last year that she left social media after being sent explicit content as a young girl.
Previously, Winter also discussed the relentless body-shaming she faced while going through her teen years on camera: “That was a major part of my teenage years,” she told People in part. “It was just everywhere. 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. It totally damaged my self-esteem.”
The post Ariel Winter Reveals She Received “Inappropriate Messages From Older Men” As A Child Working In Hollywood appeared first on Deadline.
