'Modern Family' star Ariel Winter says she moved away from Los Angeles to escape the paparazzi: 'Everywhere I went, someone was taking my picture'

• "Modern Family" star Ariel Winter said that she moved out of Los Angeles recently to have privacy.
• Winter said that she "always hated LA," in part because she had been followed by paparazzi for years.

"Modern Family" star Ariel Winter said that she moved away from Los Angeles to no longer have to deal with paparazzi.

Winter, 24, said on the May 9 episode of the "Quitters Podcast," which is hosted by her "Modern Family" costar Julie Bowen and Chad Sanders, that she recently decided to pack up and move out of Los Angeles to a location that she's keeping private.

"Part of the reason I always hated LA was because I have been followed by paparazzi for a very long portion of my life," Winter said. "I really really dislike having my space invaded. I don't like pictures of me when I haven't signed up for pictures of me, I don't like feeling watched. I've always just wanted to live a very, very normal life. Just have a normal existence."

Winter said that she didn't feel like that was possible in Los Angeles.

"Everywhere I went, someone's taking my picture," she said on the podcast. "I just wanted to live as normal of a life as I could."

Winter made her debut on "Modern Family" when she was 11 years old and was 22 years old when the series ended in 2020. She's spoken previously about growing up in the spotlight, saying in December 2021 on "Red Table Talk: The Estefans" that she felt "an overwhelming amount of negativity and sexualization" as a teenager.

Winter said that in Los Angeles, she didn't feel like she could do "normal" things like walking her dog without being scrutinized. She said that it made her "so happy" to have a more private life in her new city.

"I want to have privacy, and I've never really had privacy to just live my life, to live my existence," Winter said.