Influencer Dylan Mulvaney has broken her silence on the backlash over her promotion for Bud Light.
In April, conservatives lost their minds because Bud Light partnered with Mulvaney, who is a transgender influencer. The promotion consisted of her posting a video promoting Bud Light and the company giving her a commemorative can with her face on it.
The transphobic boycott of Bud Light continues to the present day and has seen the company’s stock price decline as well as its sales. Its chief executive officer was asked about it as recently as this week.
Other than telling a reporter that she was “thriving” in the early days of the backlash, Mulvaney has kept quiet throughout it all, even as right-wingers online called for violence against her, hurled hateful transphobia her way, and swore they’d never drink Bud Light again because it partnered with her.
On Thursday, she finally addressed the matter directly.
Mulvaney posted a TikTok describing what she’s been through and her feelings on the matter. She said she should’ve made the video months ago but was scared and hoped that things would blow over.
Mulvaney said she’d been waiting for “the brand” to contact her, but “they never did.”
“It must’ve been a slow news week,” she said of the backlash to the promotion, “because the way that this ad got blown up, you would’ve thought I was like on a billboard or on a TV commercial, or something major. But no. It was just an Instagram video,” she said.
Mulvaney said that she was stunned by the intensity of the reaction. “What transpired from that video was more bullying and transphobia than I could’ve ever imagined.”
@dylanmulvaney Trans people like beer too. 🏳️⚧️🍻
♬ original sound – Dylan Mulvaney
She said that she’s been threatened and harassed since then.
“For months now I’ve been scared to leave my house,” she said. “I have been ridiculed in public. I’ve been followed and I have felt a loneliness that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”
“For a company to hire a trans person and then not publicly stand by them is worse than not hiring a trans person at all. Because it gives customers permission to be as transphobic and as hateful as they want. There’s should be nothing controversial or divisive about working with us,” she said.
Mulvaney insisted that she doesn’t want people to pity her, noting that she has privileges that many other transgender people do not.
Instead, she called on brands to realize that LGBTQ people are their customers too and for people to support the transgender community.
“Hey, it’s still Pride Month, so I am going to celebrate being alive. I am going to celebrate the trans people in my life and the ones I haven’t met yet.”
Mulvaney noted that people were probably watching “for the tea of it all” but said she hopes something productive comes from it.
“There is a link in my bio to the Trans Law Center who is doing some wonderful work. If you have the means to donate. And to the good people out there, I love ya. I really do.”
Bud Light has not commented on Mulvaney’s video.
