Ariel Winter talks end of 'Modern Family,' why she left college

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Pamela Anderson defends 'Modern Family' actress Ariel Winter against body-shamers

Former 'Baywatch' bombshell Pamela Anderson came to the defense of 'Modern Family' star Ariel Winter, after the actress was body-shamed on social media due to her recent weight loss. Anderson said that 'it's a waste of energy to engage' online trolls. Winter recently opened up about her drastic weight loss and said her slimmer appearance was due to a change in her antidepressant medication.

Ariel Winter isn't excited for "Modern Family" to end, but she's eager to get on with her adult life after playing a child on TV for a decade.

"It's strange to think that it's coming to an end," Winter, 21, told The Hollywood Reporter. "It will be hard to say goodbye. It will be hard to leave that, but I am excited to do new things. I'm excited to play new roles and to do things that challenge me a little more."

The actress added, "Alex is a great character but Alex doesn't change a ton... I was a kid as Alex on the show and now I'm an adult as Alex, so it's a little different than the roles I want to play. I don't want to play kid to adult. I want to just play my age now."

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Ariel Winter of "Modern Family" attends the Entertainment Weekly & PEOPLE New York Upfronts Party on May 13, 2019 in New York. Winter has made a secondary career out of speaking out against body shamers. (Getty)

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Winter briefly attended the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) briefly, but she says it didn't work out because of her schedule.

"I loved going [to UCLA]; however, I overestimated what I could do at that time," she confessed. "I wasn't really able to get to the majority of my classes. It was kind of me just looking at the book, not having any exam notes, just trying to figure it out on my own. I thought it was kind of a waste. Not like going there was a waste, I mean UCLA, I was so so lucky, it's such an amazing school ... But it just didn't make sense at the time."

There's also the general distraction of simply being famous and the trappings that come along with it. While Winter says she's "not really a fame person," she spends a good deal of time on social media firing back at cruel comments on everything from her appearance to her talent to her general existence, leading her to be severely insecure about her appearance.

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Though she could turn her comments off, she'd rather not.

"I don't know what it is about me. I feel like people sometimes think that just because they see us on TV that they're in our lives and they get to comment in such a harsh way. I think that's very confusing. I wanted to try to change the things that they were saying," she confessed. "Maybe I need to lose weight, maybe I should have my hair this color, and I tried doing all of those things. And it didn't change anything. Then it was something else to criticize."

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She added, "I learned that people will say what they say regardless ... So really I spent so much time trying to make other people happy that I didn't make myself happy ... But I try now to ignore the mean comments. I have not had a lot of success with ignoring them recently."