“Modern Family” star Ariel Winter opened up about her harrowing experience posing as a preteen girl to help catch a child sexual predator.
The 27-year-old actress, who played Alex Dunphy on the hit sitcom “Modern Family” from 2009 to 2020, joined forces with the nonprofit Safe from Online Sex Abuse (SOSA) for an undercover sting operation that was featured in the true crime docuseries “SOSA Undercover.”
In the premiere episode, Winter pretended to be a 12-year-old girl to entice a 31-year-old predator in Oklahoma City. During an interview with the Daily Mail published Friday, Winter explained how she felt about serving as a decoy in the operation.
“It’s definitely cathartic to be teaming with SOSA, knowing that I can make a difference,” Winter said.
‘MODERN FAMILY’ STAR ARIEL WINTER FLED LA TO ESCAPE TRAUMA FROM CHILDHOOD STARDOM
“It can be scary at times pretending to be 12 and talking to older men, but it’s validating to put away predators that have been harming children,” she continued.
“Growing up in the entertainment industry, I’ve been the girl we are trying to save,” Winter added. “It’s vital to me to help protect young women from the experiences I endured in my own life.”
Winter donned a blonde wig with bangs to play the part of the fake 12-year-old. In one scene, Winter was seen sitting on a bed in a room that was staged to look like a child’s bedroom. The actress adopted a child-like voice as she FaceTimed the predator, whom she referred to as “Daddy.”
While speaking with the DailyMail.com, Winter described how she worked with SOSA to identify online child sexual predators.
“Finding someone is hard, because they don’t use their real name or handle, and we have to do research into who these people are,” she said. “You see a lot of dark things when you start investigating who is after pre-teen girls.
“I was surprised by the volume how many men were out there looking to talk to young girls who were 12 or 13. It’s hundreds of thousands of men,” Winter continued.
“These men also look like normal, nice guys — they don’t look like predators,” she added. “They look like the guy next-door, and they’re usually married and have children. The men seem nice because they have pets, and they show you pictures of their dogs. They talk about their everyday life, and they seem like sweet men. But the truth is they want to spend time with a 12-year-old girl, they ask inappropriate questions and want to know if parents are around.”
“One guy was almost 40-years-old, and he wanted to take an 11-year-old girl shopping for a new bra. That’s not normal. It’s not good.”
The actress told the outlet that seeing adult men who were seeking out girls ranging from 12 to 14-years-old was “wild.”
“This whole experience has been heartbreaking, because I think of how young these girls are and they’re being approached by much older men,” she said.
“I am familiar with male predators, because I worked in Hollywood at a young age, I started at age four,” added Winter, who made her TV debut in a 2002 Cool Whip commercial.
“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 causes trauma,” she continued.
“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,” Winter explained. “The movie and TV industry is a dark place.”
Winter noted how easy it can be for vulnerable children to become prey for adult perpetrators.
“Kids look for online relationships because they’re lonely or bored, and then they find a male and think that they can connect to them, not realizing they are so much older and are actually predators with bad intentions,” she said.
The Virginia native told the outlet that she planned to continue volunteering for SOSA.
“I like working with SOSA because it’s women helping women, and I’ll do it as long as I can,” Winter said.
In February, SOSA shared a clip from the premiere episode on Instagram ahead of its release on March 20. At the time, Winter commented on the video as she candidly reflected on her real-life experiences with child sexual abuse.
“I was a victim of grooming online and IRL, and CSA,” Winter wrote. “The effects are lifelong and inescapable. This has ALWAYS been a problem, but in the digital age it is only escalating to more extreme levels and in more manipulative ways.”
She continued, “The access predators have to ALL children in this day and age is immeasurable. This issue needs to be brought further into the light and fought with everything we have. These are very real situations, with real men committing very real crimes, being arrested by real law enforcement that we are asked to assist who are with us every step of the way.”
“SOSA helps get actual convictions and take these perpetrators off the streets,” Winter added. “It is not easy to do this work, but it is so rewarding to know that we’ve helped protect even one child.”
