Influencer Dylan Mulvaney shared that Bud Light never reached out to her after facing transphobia from her ad with them.
In a TikTok uploaded on Thursday, Mulvaney, a transgender woman who has used her platform to document her transition, spoke about her experience after doing an ad for Bud Light.
Mulvaney had posted an Instagram video of her drinking Bud Light back in April. The ad led to an onslaught of transphobia and threats directed towards the 26-year-old as well as some conservatives and anti-trans campaigners boycotting Bud Light. Some even went so far as to destroy Bud Light products in stores.
The TikTok, which currently has over 1.5 million likes and over 8 million views, started with Mulvaney drinking beer saying "one thing I will not tolerate people saying about me is that I don't like beer," she smiles. "Because I love beer and I always have."
She goes on to talk about the brand partnership with Bud Light saying: "I'm bringing it up because what transpired from that video was more bullying and transphobia than I could have ever imagined."
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"I was scared, I was scared of more backlash and I felt personally guilty for what transpired so I patiently waited for things to get better. But surprise, they haven't really," explaining why she was speaking about it now. "And I was waiting for the brand to reach out to me but they never did. And for months now, I've been scared to leave my house. I have been ridiculed in public. I've been followed. And I have felt a loneliness I wouldn't wish on anyone."
@dylanmulvaneyTrans people like beer too. ?️⚧️?
The revelation that Bud Light had not reached out to Mulvaney after she faced bullying and harassment from their customers left many viewers shocked and appalled:
"For a company to hire a trans person and then not publicly stand by them is worse, in my opinion, than not hiring a trans person at all," Mulvaney told viewers. "Because it gives customers permission to be as transphobic and hateful as they want. And the hate doesn't end with me, it has serious and grave consequences for the rest of our community and you know we're customers too, I know a lot of trans and queer people who love beer and I have some lesbian friends who could drink some of those haters under the table."
"And all this is to say bottom line is that if you follow me, if I've made you smile, if you care about me, I need you to care about every trans person and I need you to support us and I need you to stand by us."
At the end of her video, she added: "It's still Pride month, I'm gonna celebrate being alive and I'm gonna celebrate the trans people in my life and the ones I haven't met yet. And I'm going to celebrate the fact that no matter how many thousands of horrible messages or news anchors misgendering me or companies going silent that I can look in the mirror and see the woman that I am and that I love being."
Mulvaney's video comes after Bud Light's parent company Anheuser-Busch's CEO Brendan Whitworth gave an exclusive interview to CBS Mornings on Wednesday. During the interview' he acknowledged it had been a "tough few weeks" for the company. "The conversation has become divisive," he said. "Bud Light has supported LGBTQ [people] since 1998, so that's 25 years, and as we've said from the beginning we'll continue to support the communities and organisations that we have supported for decades."
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