Entertainment- "Modern Family" star Ariel Winter confused Lance Armstrong with Neil Armstrong on "Stars On Mars."
- Winter and Lance are both competing on the show. Winter called Lance a "real astronaut."
"Modern Family" star Ariel Winter admitted she confused Lance Armstrong with Neil Armstrong during the Monday premiere of the new Fox reality series, "Stars On Mars."
Both Winter and disgraced cycling champion Lance are competing on the show along with 10 other celebrities to see who can last the longest in the Mars-like habitat in Australia.
When Lance enters the competition in the show's first episode, 25-year-old Winter says she's surprised to see a "real astronaut" competing.
"Lance Armstrong is a real frickin' astronaut. He is a real astronaut," Winter said in a confessional. "He is Lance Armstrong. You need to Google him. You need to know everything about him because he is so cool."
"The fact that we have an astronaut is so crazy," Winter says to TV personality Porsha Williams Guobadia, 41.
"You said what?" Guobadia replies.
"I'm so confused," Winter continues, "is he going to be our judge?"
"There's probably 20-year-olds out there who get me confused with Neil Armstrong. If I were Neil Armstrong, I'd be dead," Lance joked in a confessional.
Winter later admitted she had confused Lance — the 51-year-old former cycling champion who famously was caught using steroids — with Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon in 1969. Neil died in 2012 at 82.
"That was part of my, like, fear coming on this show was I was going to say something stupid," Winter said later in a confessional. "And I literally, like, I outdid myself."
The elimination show is packed with celebrities, including retired football star Marshawn Lynch, wrestler Ronda Rousey, "Vanderpump Rules" cast member Tom Schwartz, figure skater Adam Rippon, actor Tallulah Willis, among others.
The celebrities all "live, eat, sleep, strategize, and bond" in what the network calls "authentic conditions that simulate life on Mars" while competing in challenges together, according to a press release.
Each episode, a celebrity gets "extracted" from "The Hab" (the show's living quarters) and sent back to "Earth." Actor Christopher Mintz-Plasse — of "Superbad" (2007) and "Kick-Ass" (2010) fame — was the first to be "extracted" during the season premiere.
"Stars On Mars" is currently airing on Fox.