Transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney says Bud Light didn’t support her during the backlash
Transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney says she felt let down by Bud Light after experiencing “more harassment and transphobia than I could have ever imagined” over her partnership with the beer giant.
In a video Posted on Instagram and TikTok on Thursday, she said she was “waiting for the brand to contact me. But they never did.” She said she should have spoken out sooner but was scared and hoped things would get better – but it didn’t.
“For months I’ve been afraid to leave my house,” Mulvaney said. “I’ve been ridiculed in public. I’ve been followed and I’ve felt a loneliness I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”
Shortly after Mulvaney busted open a Bud Light in an Instagram video on April 1, an outpouring of criticism and hatred erupted as part of a social media promotion for the beer. She showed off a can with her face on it that Bud Light had sent her – one of the many business freebies she receives and shares with her millions of followers.
Conservative figures and others called for a boycott of Bud Light, while Mulvaney’s supporters criticized the brand for not doing enough to support it.
Bud Light’s hiring of trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney drew conservative backlash, but the company’s handling of those backlash led to even more criticism from the LGBT community.
In the weeks and months that followed, two marketing executives from parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev took a leave of absence, Bud Light lost its decades-long position as America’s best-selling beer, and the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ rights advocacy group, suspended its equality and inclusion rating for the brewing giant.
“If a company hires a trans person and then doesn’t publicly assist them, in my opinion it’s worse than not hiring a trans person at all — because it gives customers permission to be as transphobic and hateful as they want,” Mulvaney said . , without mentioning Bud Light.
Belgium-based ABInBev did not immediately respond to emails asking for comment on Friday.
In a statement issued April 14, Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth said the company had “never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people. Our job is to bring people together while enjoying a beer.”
