Luke Benward Jokes Ariel Winter Won't Watch ‘Modern Family’ With Him

Like most of us, Luke Benward is a big fan of Modern Family — but he says girlfriend Ariel Winter, who starred as Alex Dunphy on the hit sitcom, refuses to watch it with him.

“She won’t let me watch Modern Family with her. But sometimes I turn it on just to mess with her,” Benward, 30, told Us Weekly exclusively of Winter, 27, ahead of the release of their new thriller, Don’t Log Off. “I just love Phil Dunphy. He never misses.”

Winter jokingly clarified, “It’s not that I won’t let you watch it,” admitting that when her boyfriend does indulge in the ABC show, he has to do it by himself.

“My family loved Modern Family,” Benward recalled, adding that shortly after he and the actress met for the first time, his parents embarrassingly fangirled over her while they were out to dinner in Los Angeles. “[My dad] was like, ‘Hey, we know her!’ and I was like, ‘Dad, dad, we don’t know her. I know her. You know her from Modern Family. Let’s lower your voice here.”

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While Winter was too busy on set or buried in books (“I wasn’t cool,” she joked) to watch Benward’s kid-friendly movies growing up, she has since become a big fan of his work — from Disney Channel to raunchy comedies.

“I watched Life of the Party in Paris with Nolan Gould from [Modern Family] at 3:00 a.m. when we landed there,” Winter recalled of the first time she came across Benward’s work. “We were hanging out in my room, and it came on the TV, and [Luke and I] had just started seeing each other as more than friends.”

She continued: “I was fangirling over the movie. I was like, ‘He looks really cute.’ I was like, ‘He’s not my man right now, but he’s mildly my man. That’s kind of my man.’ And I watched the whole movie. I was into it.”

Since then, the couple have watched Benward’s How to Eat Fried Worms and Minutemen together. Next up in the queue is Cloud 9, which he admits is the movie he gets recognized for the most.

The duo shifted gears for their latest film, Don’t Log Off, which takes place — and was filmed — in March 2020. While it may evoke haunting memories of masks, empty grocery stores and fear for many viewers, the time period also happens to represent the beginning of Benward and Winter’s love story.

‘Don’t Log Off’ movie poster Epic Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

“We started dating, and then it was funny with the quarantine because everyone was saying it was only going to be, like, three weeks,” Winter told Us, adding that after deciding to hole up with Benward, those three weeks just kept getting extended. “We’ve now been quarantining in the best way for five and a half years.”

The former child stars were best friends for years before things turned romantic, which they agree provided them with a solid foundation for a fast-tracked relationship.

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“You start with the attraction, and then you get the connection, and then you’re like, ‘OK, can I be friends with this person? Do I like this person?’” Benward told Us. “We were already way past that. [Then] COVID hit and it was just like, let’s dive in headfirst and see how this goes. And it went great.”

Winter added: “We know a lot of COVID divorces, COVID babies [but] not many COVID-strong relationships, but we’re happy to be one. We’re proud to represent for the COVID-strong relationships.”

Ariel Winter, Luke Benward and their six dogs Courtesy of Ariel Winter/Instagram

Producing and starring in Don’t Log Off together completely over Zoom during the pandemic helped the couple find a “little piece of creative light in what was a very suppressive darkness,” said Benward.

These days, the duo are Mom and Dad to six dogs — “There’s nothing like a six dog cuddle puddle,” Winter said — and while they don’t plan on adding any more furry friends to the clan, the Dumplin’ actor told Us we can expect more professional collaborations from the couple, as well as how “you would expect a relationship to unfold as planned in the next five years.”

Don’t Log Off is out in select theaters today and available to buy or rent starting July 15.