Ariel Winter, famously known for her work in Modern Family, has opened up about the time she went undercover as a 12-year-old to help catch child predators.
The 27-year-old Modern Family star, best known for her role as Alex Dunphy, joined the nonprofit Safe from Online Sex Abuse (SOSA) for a chilling undercover sting operation that was featured in the new true crime docuseries SOSA Undercover.
And in the premiere episode, Winter didn’t just lend her voice – she became the decoy.
Posing as a preteen girl, Winter donned a blonde wig with bangs and sat in a fake child’s bedroom, even using a childlike voice to FaceTime with a 31-year-old predator in Oklahoma City, whom she shockingly referred to as “Daddy.”
The scene wasn’t fictional. It was real. The sting, the predator, the danger – all of it.
Speaking with the Daily Mail, Winter shared what it felt like to step into the shoes of someone so vulnerable.
“It’s definitely cathartic to be teaming with SOSA, knowing that I can make a difference,” she said. “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.”
For Winter, the work hits close to home. “Growing up in the entertainment industry, I’ve been the girl we are trying to save,” she revealed.
“It’s vital to me to help protect young women from the experiences I endured in my own life.” Her comments weren’t just about the sting – they were personal.
She explained: “I am familiar with male predators, because I worked in Hollywood at a young age, I started at age four.”
And it didn’t take long for the exploitation to begin. “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.”
“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,” she admitted. “The movie and TV industry is a dark place.”
While acting in this sting, she was stunned by how common these encounters were. “I was surprised by the volume of how many men were out there looking to talk to young girls who were 12 or 13.
“It’s hundreds of thousands of men,” she said.
“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.”
Winter didn’t hold back on just how warped these situations can get.
“One guy was almost 40 years old, and he wanted to take an 11-year-old girl shopping for a new bra,” the actress recalled. “That’s not normal. It’s not good.”
She called the entire experience “heartbreaking,” adding: “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 emphasized how easy it is for kids to fall into these traps.
“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.
Despite the emotional toll, Winter is committed to the work and isn’t backing down. “I like working with SOSA because it’s women helping women, and I’ll do it as long as I can,” she said.
