Ariel Winter and Nolan Gould Played Siblings on Modern Family for 11 Years. They Just Moved in Together as Roommates in LA.
Ariel Winter and Nolan Gould grew up on the same set. They were 11 and 10 when they got cast as Alex and Luke Dunphy on Modern Family in 2009. The show ran until 2020, pulled in 22 Emmys, and turned them into two of the most recognizable child actors of their generation.
Their on-screen dynamic was the opposite of who they actually are. Alex was the sharp, outspoken middle child who couldn’t connect with her siblings. Luke was the cheerfully clueless one. Off camera, Gould is in Mensa, has a reported IQ around 150, and finished high school at 13. Winter is closer to the character she played.
The roommate news landed in a People interview published May 18. Winter had been in Nashville with her boyfriend Luke Benward, an actor and singer she’d known for years before they started dating around 2019. They shared a house and four rescue dogs. The relationship ended in August 2025 and was publicly confirmed in mid-May 2026. She packed up, moved back to LA, and into a place with Gould.
“People ask me about a Modern Family reboot, but Nolan and I are real roommates now,” she told People. “So it’s like we’re having our own little Modern Family reboot, but it’s just the two of us living together. So I see him every day.”
Winter’s life off camera has carried weight most of the cast didn’t have to navigate. She was emancipated from her parents around age 14, with her older sister Shanelle Workman becoming her legal guardian. She faced intense body-shaming as a teenager and had a breast reduction at 17 in 2015, which she spoke about openly at the time. She’s since become an advocate for child actor protections and mental health.
Watching reality TV like Temptation Island with Gould is “pretty hilarious,” she told People, and they’ve joked about letting cameras in. People, she said, “would find this really funny.”
She’s known him since she was 11.
