Luke Benward has a thing for redheads, apparently — or just Ariel Winter with a fiery mane. The 22-year-old Modern Family star shared a throwback photo of her red hair on Feb. 7, and jumped into the comments section of her own post to write, “hehehe baby is pumped for this hair color to return.” That “baby” is Luke, since she tagged the 24-year-old Dumplin’ star’s Instagram handle! Don’t worry, Luke’s not the only one excited for Ariel to make the transition from dark hair to red tresses. “🙃can’t wait to get back to this hair color🙃 #fbf,” Ariel captioned the photo.
Ariel had to remain raven-haired for her role as Alex Dunphy in Modern Family, ever since the show’s premiere in 2009. Fast forward a decade later, and the ABC series is approaching its last ever episode in April of 2020! This opens up Ariel to more hair experimentation, something she already dabbled in when she underwent a dramatic hair makeover and became a redhead in May of 2019 (hence, the makeover photo you see below). She also sported strawberry blonde hair while filming an episode of Law & Order: SVU in Oct. 2019!
Not only is Ariel becoming more open to different hair colors, but she and Luke are becoming more comfortable with Instagram flirting as well! Before Ariel shared her throwback hair photo, Luke called his friend-turned-lover both a “bunny” and a “dream” in his birthday shout-outs to the ABC star on Jan. 28. The gushy labels were accompanied by equally romantic photos, which showed them getting cozy on a beach and at a 2019 New Year’s Eve party.
Now that Ariel is directly calling out Luke in a flirty comment on Instagram, you can see this romance is heating up. It didn’t always used to be that way. “When they were spotted out in October [of 2019] during that dinner date in Studio City, things were not serious but that has changed dramatically over the past two months,” a source EXCLUSIVELY told HollywoodLife in Jan. 2020. “They definitely have a connection and feel very comfortable with each other since they were friends for so long before things heated up.” The lovers had been “running in the same squad since at least late 2016/early 2017,” our source also told us, meaning Luke has been there to witness all of Ariel’s hair changes!