Dylan Mulvaney criticized Bud Light, three months after the company hired the transgender activist as a marketing partner, which led to a significant boycott of the beer brand nationwide. The influencer said in an Instagram video that the company’s response to the boycott was “worse, in my opinion than not hiring a trans person at all because it gives customers permission to be as transphobic and hateful as they want.”
Mulvaney’s statements were the activist’s first since the partnership with the beer giant ended.
“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,” the activist said.
Mulvaney said, “I should’ve made this video months ago but I didn’t. And I was scared, and I was scared of more backlash and I felt personally guilty for what transpired.”
The influencer anticipated that Bud Light would reach out, “but they never did.”
Mulvaney expressed fear of leaving home and that “I have been ridiculed in public, I’ve been followed, and I have felt a loneliness that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”
The former Bud Light marketing partner described this as “my experience from a very privileged perspective, know that it is much, much worse for other trans people.”
The public statements come as Anheuser-Busch continues its attempts at damage control over the partnership.
The company’s CEO Brendan Whitworth told “CBS Mornings” that the company has suffered a “challenging few weeks.”
.@AnheuserBusch CEO Brendan Whitworth says his company has begun sending financial assistance wholesalers, who he says have been impacted by the recent controversy surrounding a Bud Light promotion with Dylan Mulvaney. pic.twitter.com/fpEzyBWuFW
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) June 28, 2023
“I think the conversation surrounding Bud Light has moved away from beer, and the conversation has become divisive,” he said. “And Bud Light really doesn’t belong there. Bud Light should be all about bringing people together.”
The CEO described the Mulvaney partnership as just “one can” and described the “impact” of the boycott on the company’s employees, consumers and partners.
“One thing I’d love to make extremely clear is that impact is my responsibility and as the CEO, everything we do here I’m accountable for,” Whitworth said.
