Dylan Mulvaney on Thursday blasted Bud Light for giving “customers permission to be as transphobic and as hateful as they want” by abandoning the trans influencer following backlash over the disastrous tie-up.
The social media star finally broke her silence with an emotional Instagram video to her 1.8 million followers, tearfully revealing that she has been “ridiculed in public” and has “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,” Mulvaney, 26, said in the clip.
The comments come a day after Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth refused to say whether the company would ever work with Mulvaney again. The Belgian beer giant has suffered a $20 billion hit amid calls to boycott the nation’s top-selling brand.
Mulvaney said that since she posted a video to her social media on April 1 touting Bud Light, she has received “more bullying and transphobia than I could have ever imagined.”
“I’ve been scared to leave my house,” she said.
Mulvaney added: “Supporting trans people shouldn’t be political. There should be nothing divisive or controversial about working with us.”
The Post has sought comment from Anheuser-Busch.
Mulvaney said the company has made no effort to reach out to her since receiving a Bud Light tallboy with her image on the can.
“I was scared of more backlash, and I felt personally guilty for what transpired,” the influencer said.
“I patiently waited for things to get better…and I was waiting for the brand to reach out to me, but they never did.”
She brought up the specially designed can with her likeness, saying that she plans to “put it in a museum behind bulletproof glass.”
“One thing I will not tolerate people saying about me is that I don’t like beer because I love beer and I always have,” Mulvaney said.
Anheuser-Busch has previously tried to distance itself from the Mulvaney posts, which ignited a firestorm that has dragged down its sister brands, including Budweiser and Michelob Ultra.
Bud Light’s sales suffered their steepest drop yet since the controversy broke, with sales for the week ended June 20 down 28.5% from a year ago.
Early in the controversy, the company did not disavow its partnership with Mulvaney, explaining that it was one of many such promotional partnerships meant to “authentically connect with audiences across various demographics and passion points,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
Anheuser-Busch’s 65,000 employees and distributors are on the front lines of the backlash, including being mocked and threatened with car horns, cursing, and a declining income as sales of the brewery’s brands keep falling.
Additional Reporting by Lisa Fickenscher
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
