Ariel Winter is tough as nails. At just 19, the Modern Family actress has established herself in Hollywood, has tackled body-shaming head-on, and has made careful decisions on what's best for her health and the overall trajectory of her life, including her choice to get a breast reduction and to distance herself from her mother at a young age.
No matter how many times Winter asserts herself, critics make an effort to drag her back down. This time, that critic is her estranged mother, Crystal Workman.
In an interview with Inside Edition, Workman berated Winter's fashion choices before making a plea to once again be part of her daughter's life after not communicating for nearly five years.
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"I just want to see her have respect for herself and have some class," Workman said. "That one in particular, where her leg is raised and she's holding a martini glass, I saw it and all I could do was cry and feel bad for her...Ariel is starving for attention. I feel that this is a cry for help from my child."
Workman later made a direct appeal to Winter, saying: "It's time to fix your relationship with your mom. Every girl needs her mom and every mom needs her daughter."
Just days before Workman's interview, Winter gave an emotional interview to The Hollywood Reporter in which she claimed that her mom oversexualized her at as a child.
"[My mother would dress me in] the smallest miniskirts, sailor suits, low-cut things, the shortest dresses you've ever seen," Winter said. "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."
As for her sartorial decisions now, Winter is unapologetic about wearing whatever she wants, whenever she wants, haters be damned.
"Screw having to always look appropriate or fashionable," she wrote in a lengthy social media post. "For what? Society? Who gets to decide what is appropriate or fashionable to wear???? I wear what I like and no one should fault me for that."
Though this certainly wasn't the first time Workman has criticized her daughter, I sincerely hope she can respect the boundaries Winter has drawn and accept that like it or not, Winter is a grown-ass woman who can show off her body as she pleases.