Awww! This is so sweet. Modern Family star Ariel Winter says it was pretty much love at first sight when she saw her now-boyfriend, Laurent Gaudette.
“It was kind of like I saw him, and I was like, ‘I would like to get to know him. And I did!’” the Modern Family star, 17, told Us Weekly at the Teen Vogue Young Hollywood event in L.A. on Friday, Oct. 2.
The actress met Gaudette, a producer, singer, and songwriter, in high school and revealed that she was the one who made the first move — and through a text!
“I’m very outgoing, so I kind of initiated the, ‘Hi, I’m here! It’s nice to meet you,'” she explains to Us.
“I received a text from her,” Gaudette, 18, tells Us. “That’s the first interaction I remember with her. Her first thing she sent to me was a giant, long paragraph.”
That was two years ago, and the couple are still going strong, recently walking the red carpet together at the Emmys. Gaudette was also by Winter’s side as she dealt with an emotionally trying time as she battled her mother in court. Winter was removed from her mother’s care in 2012 amid allegations of physical and emotional abuse and was legally emancipated earlier this year.
“It’s so awesome to be in love with somebody who’s so supportive and wonderful and just somebody who’s also your best friend,” Winter tells Us.
The Sophia the First star also spoke about what fans can expect for her character, Alex Dunphy, on this season of Modern Family.
“Just because my character wants to go to college because I, myself, want to go to college, that does not mean my character’s going to leave,” Winter tells Us. “Alex is going to college 30 minutes away from her house.”
She also talked about the positive reaction from her fans after she went public about her breast reduction surgery.
“They’ve been amazing,” she says. “I received so much support from women and young girls, and I think when girls are tweeting me and saying like, ‘Oh, this wouldn’t be accepted where I am, but now that you did it and opened a conversation about it, I can actually like talk to my friends and family about the possibility of this.’ It was just really moving to see so many girls share what I went through and then be considering making a difference because I did.”