Ariel Winter Gets Candid About the Constant Negativity Online Regarding Her Body

Ariel Winter is opening up about always getting body shamed online.

The 22-year-old Modern Family actress talked about how she handles the hate and one thing that she didn’t quite think of until she saw a comment pointing it out.

“People on the internet really suck. It bothered me for so many years — I mean, it still does. It never goes away. When someone calls you a ‘fat slut,’ you’re not feeling happy about it. It doesn’t matter what you look like now, it doesn’t matter what you looked like then,” Ariel told Teen Vogue. “You’re still going to read that and be like, ‘Oh, that sucks.’”

“I feel like that [pain] never goes away. People are like, ‘How do you get that to go away? It doesn’t bother you at all anymore.’ Again, that’s missing the point. What I’ve said is, I’ve learned to deal with it more,” she said about making the negative comments matter less. “It’s a journey of being confident enough to look at that and evaluate my opinion of myself, which I’m not fully at yet. I’m still working there.”

Ariel also pointed out that one comment in particular really made her think and re-evaluate.

“I had someone comment on one of my pictures, and it really bugged me. They said, ‘So many people on your photos, it really is divided. So many people show so much love and support, and you spend so much time on the negative comments and ignore all the positive ones.’ It really sucked to read that because that’s true,” Ariel said. “You overlook the positive comments, because as soon as you see the positive ones it’s like, ‘Okay, great, but these people don’t agree.’ But why do those people’s [negative] comments matter more than those [positive] comments?”