‘Modern Family' alum Ariel Winter opens up about ‘deep, painful' childhood

Ariel Winter just opened up about her childhood.

The actress, now 27 years old, born and raised in LA, started acting in commercials when she was just 14.

Finding stardom with her role as the middle child Alex Dunphy in Modern Family, starring Sophia Vergara, Winter discussed the cons of fame.

In this week’s story for PEOPLE magazine, she spoke of being surrounded with negativity and confessed, “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 s**t. I mean, I was 14,” Winter recalled.

She admitted that the hate had “totally damaged my self-esteem” adding, “I understood what it was like to be hated."

"No matter what I was going through, I was a target. It made it very difficult to look at myself in the mirror and go, ‘I love this version of me,'" Winter further revealed to the outlet.

However, her life did take a positive turn after she was taken under custody by her older sister, Shanelle Gray.

“I went on to have a great rest of my teenage years thanks to being under her custody,” she says of her older sister, who became her legal guardian.

However, Ariel Winter refrained from going into more details of her childhood saying, “Honestly, it’s just my entire childhood. It’s a really deep, painful, sore, sore part for me that’s so much deeper and bigger than I’ve ever felt ready to talk about.”