Yesterday, Modern Family star Ariel Winter shared the news that her cousin, Tino Tsutras, had been hospitalised with Haemophilus Influenzae — a bacteria which can cause a number of serious illnesses including meningitis, septicaemia and pneumonia.
Ariel posted the link to his GoFundMe page, which was aiming to raise $19,000 towards his recovery costs, alongside a caption asking for donations from anyone who was able to help.
💔 this is my cousin Tino. If you can, please consider donating to his recovery fund. Anything helps. I love him so much 💔https://t.co/8Sx6R08RAr
And she went on to post a second tweet containing a series of photos of herself with Tino.
https://t.co/8Sx6R08RAr
Many of her fans responded to the request and wished Ariel and her family well.
However, the majority of responses were from people saying that Ariel should be using her own money to help her cousin rather than asking her fans to contribute.
And it wasn't long before Ariel spoke out against the comments. She started by responding to this message which told her to use her own money to help Tino.
Ariel replied saying the comment was "shitty" and presumptive.
She went on to say that her family will do "everything they can" to help her cousin, adding that the criticism of her was "horrible."
Another commenter claimed that Ariel should be able to afford the full amount of Tino's medical costs by calculating her reported net-worth.
But Ariel responded to that tweet too, saying that the figures provided weren't "true facts," adding that the tweet was "insensitive."
Ariel then revealed that she'd been "shocked" by the number of "hate tweets" she'd received, stating that she was only asking for "love and support" for her family.
And she went onto retweet this message from a fan who spoke out in her defence.
The whole ordeal comes just four months after Ariel's Modern Family co-star Sarah Hyland was criticised for asking fans to contribute to her cousin's funeral costs after he was killed in a car accident.
