Dylan Mulvaney says Bud Light ghosted her after a beer promotion opened her up to a torrent of bullying and transphobia.
“I built my platform on being honest with you and what I’m about to tell you might sound like old news,” Mulvaney said after taking a sip of beer in a video shared to Instagram. “But you know that feeling when you have something uncomfy sitting on your chest. Well, that’s how I feel right now. So this feels like the right thing to do.”
Mulvaney says she accepted a brand promotion with a company she loved and posted a sponsored video to her Instagram page, never expecting the months-long fallout that ensued from a can of Bud Light with her likeness.
Anheuser-Busch has been grappling with a conservative boycott and plunging sales since a promotion with the trans activist.
“I’m bringing it up because what transpired from that video was more bullying and transphobia than I could have ever imagined and I should have made this video months ago but I didn’t,” she said. “I was scared and I was scared of more backlash and I felt personally guilty for what transpired.”
Describing the last few months, Mulvaney said she’s been scared to leave her house and she’s been ridiculed in public. She’s been followed. The loneliness she has felt she said she wouldn’t wish on anyone.
“I patiently waited for things to get better but surprise, they haven’t really,” Mulvaney said.
Mulvaley said was also waiting for Bud Light to reach out. But it never did.
And Bud Light still has not reached out to her, according to Mulvaney.
In an interview this week, Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth told CBS Mornings that the conversation about Bud Light has moved away from beer and become divisive. “Bud Light really doesn’t belong there,” he said.
Corporate brands from Bud Light to Target have been under attack from conservatives during Pride Month for marketing and merchandise celebrating the LGBTQ community.
The attacks come amid hundreds of bills targeting LGBTQ people – particularly transgender people – have been introduced by Republican lawmakers in statehouses across the country, seeking to regulate what bathrooms they can use, what medical care they can receive and what sports teams they can play on.
“The goal is to make ‘pride’ toxic for brands,” one conservative activist tweeted.
The LGBTQ+ community has condemned brands that have capitulated to conservative boycotts.
“There’s a big social conversation taking place right now, and big brands are right in the middle of it and it’s not just our industry or Bud Light,” Whitworth said. “It’s happening in retail, happening in fast food. And so for us what we need to understand is — deeply understand and appreciate is the consumer and what they want, what they care about and what they expect from big brands.”
Mulvaney said Bud Light’s refusal to publicly stand up for a trans person was worse than not hiring a trans person in the first place.
“It gives customers permission to be as transphobic and hateful as they want,” she said. “And the hate doesn’t end with me. It has serious and grave consequences for the rest of our community. And we’re customers, too.”
Mulvaney says she’s not looking for pity. “I’m telling you this because if this is my experience from a very privileged perspective, know that it is much, much worse for other trans people,” she said.
