Modern Family star Sarah Hyland appeared to call out the ABC sitcom over her lack of airtime in the final season, as her character Haley Dunphy has been noticeably absent from a number of episodes throughout the currently airing Season 11. The star — who’s been a main character in the popular comedy ever since it first started airing more than a decade ago — appeared to throw a little subtle shade on Twitter recently after a fan asked her why Haley hasn’t been around so much so far.
Sarah appeared to suggest that it wasn’t her idea to not be so present in new episodes and also hinted that she wasn’t exactly thrilled about the change.
It all went down last week when a fan tweeted Sarah and asked her, per BuzzFeed , “@Sarah_Hyland Why has Haley been missing from so many episodes of Modern Family this season?”
Sarah then explained her character’s absence with a somewhat shady response. She claimed that she’d been MIA because of the big storyline of last season which saw Haley become a mom as she gave birth to twins with her childhood sweetheart, Dylan.
“Apparently I’ve been busy with the twins,” the actress pretty bluntly replied, seemingly showing off her less than impressed reaction by adding an emoji with its arms crossed.
As noted by BuzzFeed , despite appearing in almost every episode of every season for the past 11 years, Sarah/Haley has so far not featured at all in four of the 11 episodes of Season 11 that have so far gone out on ABC.
After seeing her explanation, a number of fans then flocked to Twitter to share their thoughts on Haley’s recent absence. Many threw in their two cents about the character and her recent storylines.
I think they ruined Hailey’s storyline and character development so badly with that pregnancy and with Dylan, they’ve had no choice but to limit your appearances as a way to do damage control.
— Kayplusk (@KayplusK) January 21, 2020
They’ve done your character so dirty ?
— ?R? (@Renae_ssance) January 17, 2020
Though Sarah hasn’t confirmed there’s any bad blood between herself and the crew, other Twitter users were quick to point out that Sarah didn’t seem too happy about her smaller story arc during the final ever season.
the shadeeee
— ricardo (@ricardoshor99) January 17, 2020
Notably, Sarah previously expressed her thoughts on Haley taking a back seat in the final season after she revealed last week that she didn’t even know a big character was going to die until she watched the episode live.
Sarah told fans via a video posted to Instagram stories that she had no idea Haley’s grandfather Frank would die in the episode “Legacy.” She also admitted that she thought it was odd her character didn’t get to attend his funeral.
“Like, as his granddaughter, like, you’d think I’d be invited to the funeral,” she said.