Ariel Winter might have acted like everything was fine, but she noticed and disliked the public scrutiny her size 32F breasts garnered every time she walked out on a red carpet. Now, at age 17, she decided to follow in several family members’ footsteps and undergo a breast reduction surgery to reduce her chest to a more manageable 34D.
“I feel great. It was such a quick recovery for me,” the “Modern Family” actress tells Glamour of her June surgery. “I was up and running within five days. The feeling of not having so much there was such a relief! Once the surgery was completed, I can’t even explain the feeling. [A week later], I was buying clothes and crying as I put them on, I was so happy. You just feel so relieved and excited. You feel like a new person. You feel like this is how I was supposed to be.”
Winter recounts her struggles with her breasts, which forced her to wear form-fitting gowns to events because other dress styles didn’t compliment her shape and prevented her from being cast in roles her own age. She remembers her “overnight” growth spurt, which left her with a size F chest as a teenager. It led to back pain for her, an inability to buy clothes that fit and a general discomfort.
“I went to a swimsuit store with my cousin a few months ago and couldn’t find a bathing suit that fit me. I really felt bad about myself. I didn’t feel happy,” she recalls to the magazine.
As for how things have changed in the months since her surgery, Winter says, “People start looking me in the eye. Guys I’m friends with can start looking me in the eye. Other people I know can finally not turn around and whisper behind my back about, ‘Are those real? Are those fake?’ I’ve heard that for so many years. Even at 14, people would ask me, ‘Do you have fake boobs?’ But we live in a society that that’s what they think about.”
