“Modern Family” star Ariel Winter wore an ultra-sheer dress to the wrap party celebrating the end to their long-running hit show, and internet trolls were quick to step in to offer criticism.
Winter’s co-star and on-screen sister Sarah Hyland, however, was just as quick to defend Winter’s fashion choice.
“She’s a sexy and confident woman,” Hyland said in a Yahoo interview, adding that “everyone that is making a negative comment about my sister can back … up because I will not tolerate it.”
Winter has always taken chances on the red carpet and off.
To the 2019 Golden Globe Awards, she wore a corseted black dress with sheer side panels – on-trend according to a recent episode of the iconic fashion show “Project Runway” – and to a 2018 Variety Magazine event, she wore a low-cut black dress with a cutout and short skirt.
She herself has been quick to shut down critics, including her mother, Chrystal Workman, who spoke to the magazine In Touch about her daughter’s fashion choices in 2017.
Workman – from whom Winter became legally emancipated from at the age of 15 over claims of physical and emotional abuse – told the magazine, “She needs to grow up. I would tell her to dress properly, be the beautiful person she is. I feel sad that she feels the need to expose herself when it’s not necessary. She is beautiful with her clothes on.”
Winter did not let her mother’s words go unnoticed and questioned her mother’s motives talking to the meeting in a scathing post on Twitter.
What's sad is that you lie consistently. Also, why is it that you only choose to talk to me through the press? I'm doing just fine. 🚫Toxic.
— Ariel Winter (@arielwinter1) June 7, 2017
Winter, who wore a glamorous gold dress to a “Modern Family” screening, continued her response to remarks not only from her mother but from social media trolls, on Instagram.
“Why can’t people just let other people feel good about themselves and do what they want? WEAR WHATEVER YOU WANT PEOPLE! As long as you feel good about yourself that’s what matters,” she said. “I know I did. Don’t ever let anyone stifle who you are and how you express yourself. Rant over :)”
Winter has had to defend herself from critics for years but says it was her mother – who pushed her into an acting career – who first dressed her in revealing clothing, beginning at age 7, she told the Hollywood Reporter in 2017.
“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 a thousand percent said yes,” she told the magazine.
As for her own provocative fashion sense, she said, “Why stifle yourself because other people can’t handle it?”
