Ariel Winter is going to UCLA; her estranged mom is going for blood

Ariel Winter is going to UCLA in the fall, she announced Friday. Meanwhile, her mother, Crystal Workman, has been going to town this week on her estranged daughter, casting herself as the victim in their fraught relationship.

"I think Ariel is conjuring up stories to help her career at my expense, and I feel as a parent like I'm being bullied," Workman told "Inside Edition" this week, presumably referring to interviews the "Modern Family" actress did recently in which the 18-year-old spoke in little detail about her relationship with her mother.

Ariel Winter explains why she decided to get a breast reduction

In the chat with "Inside Edition," Workman took shots at her daughter's breast-reduction surgery, a procedure Winter has said relieved her of a lot of physical pain. (She went from a 32F to a 34D.)

"She should never be embarrassed about her scars, but what she shouldn't do is be flaunting them and showing them to everybody," Workman said. "I am surprised that she did it so young, and that the doctor did it for her so young and that she wasn't at least 21 to fully develop."

Winter went public with her surgery last August, then revisited her decision in February after her scars were visible when she walked the SAG Awards red carpet. That's almost certainly the "flaunting" her mom was talking about.

"Guys there is a reason I didn't make an effort to cover up my scars!" the sitcom star tweeted after that award show. "They are part of me and I'm not ashamed of them at all." She's said recently that she didn't even notice they were showing until after the fact.

Workman said Wednesday that she believes she's the one who was abused. "I have been abused physically, and I believe that all this is emotional abuse. Ariel should ask herself, has Ariel ever raised her hand to her mother? Has Ariel ever done anything that she's ashamed of, to her mother?"

The years-long battle between the two ended with Winter becoming emancipated while she was 17. Mother and daughter haven't spoken since after Winter was removed from Workman's home in November 2012. The teen's older sister eventually got a legal guardianship. Her older brother was also involved in the fight, and at one point her father was named as her financial guardian until she turned 18.

About a month ago, Winter laid out her own standards regarding her falling-out with her mom in a sit-down with Ellen DeGeneres.

"I don't really talk about the reason I don't speak to my mother. It's kind of been publicized, but ...," the actress explained. "I want to give her the same respect that she didn't give to me publicly."

That said, Winter has shared a few things, and other details have been revealed in court documents.

"My mother put me in the industry when I was 4 years old," she told DeGeneres, "and I think when you're 4 years old, you really don't know anything that you want to do. You want to be everything." Not that she doesn't love acting and does want to keep on doing it, she said, but she goes to a "real" high school and wanted to explore "other avenues," including college and maybe being a lawyer.

Workman said her daughter wanted to be in show business since the age of 5. "She was never pushed into the industry. I love her and Ariel did not like or approve of my parenting."

And as for allegations of physical abuse lodged by Winter against her mom?

"I stand by my innocence," Workman said. "I have never, never abused Ariel."

Follow Christie D'Zurilla on Twitter @theCDZ.

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