has claimed Modern Family producers ‘insisted’ she wore high heels for a scene despite suffering from gout.
The host, who played Hayley Dunphy in the ABC sitcom, was diagnosed with kidney dysplasia, which means a kidney does not fully develop in the womb, as a child and subsequently .
Sarah, 32, recalled one day of shooting during which she had to push a car with co-star Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who played Mitchell Pritchett, while she was suffering from gout and on dialysis.
‘It was wild,’ she said. ‘[Modern Family bosses] put me in high heels. They had not established my outfit yet, and they insisted that I was wearing heels.
‘And there are pictures of me on the internet in crutches.’
Sarah told Jesse on hispodcast she was diagnosed with gout, which is a type of arthritis that causes sudden and severe joint pain, after being put on special pills to help ease water retention.
The Dirty Dancing star also remembered another shoot on Modern Family during which she was in ‘extreme pain’ and ‘barely able to move’ because she was ‘in rejection’ on the dialysis treatment she was receiving for her condition.
Explaining that ‘there wasn’t enough time’ to go back to her trailer in between takes, she said: ‘I found a little corner, I sat in a chair… and I was just kind of curled up into a ball.’
Sarah heaped praise on Jesse and other members of the team for checking in on her and asking if she needed anything on that particular day.
She commented: ‘I don’t remember a lot of filming, because I was always focused on essentially just surviving and knowing my lines and being there 100% when they yelled action — and then immediately collapsing when they yelled cut.’
The Wedding Year actress blamed her ‘workhorse mentality’ for coping with the pain, adding: ‘You don’t know when the next job is going to be, and if you don’t work hard and if you complain, you get the boot.’
She discouraged others from following her ‘not healthy’ work ethic but said it was the ‘only way’ she could deal with the pain.
Jesse was among the guests when t with her partner Wells Adams in 2022 .
Created by Christopher Lloyd and Steven Levitan, Modern Family aired on ABC for 11 seasons from 2009 until 2020.
Metro.co.uk has contacted ABC and Steven Levitan for comment.
