It has been two years since transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney was in the midst of the Bud Light controversy when Mulvaney became part of an ad campaign for the beer.
The public didn’t take the partnership well when Mulvaney posted a video in April 2023 showing off the packs of beer Bud Light sent the trans influencer with Mulvaney’s image.
The special packaging was a new ad campaign to celebrate full year of transitioning to “girlhood,” Fox News reported.
On Monday, Mulvaney talked about that time in her life during an appearance on ABC’s “The View.” Mulvaney was promoting the new book “Paper Doll: Notes from a Late Bloomer.”
“Well, I will start by saying I love beer, and I always have,” Mulvaney said. “So, I mean, when I took that deal, I didn’t think anything of it, because I was, like, ‘Oh, this is perfect.’ It felt like an organic thing to do, and it was just another part of me.”
The deal turned into a nightmare when the backlash grew.
“I realized I had become the poster child for this thing when [being] trans is just a small part of me,” Mulvaney said.
Mulvaney said it was important to write about the experience, adding while living “the most privileged of transness,” others in the trans community are less fortunate.
“But what I think was really special about writing about the experience was that people see me as this, like, eternal optimist, but I think sometimes the people that are seen that way are often the ones that are hurting the most,” Mulvaney said. “What brings me the most joy is my gender euphoria and to have that used against me was such a mind game.”
“But I think it was really the people around me, and the trans women in my life that supported me during that time and took my hand and said, ‘This is our reality, welcome.’ That’s what got me through,” Mulvaney added.
Sales of Bud Light took a hit by falling by 29.9% after the videos were released, per Fox Business.
The brand has slowly been making a comeback.
Former Anheuser-Busch President of Operations Anson Frericks previously told Fox Business the company has changed its target audience.
“They are advertising Bud Light. And candidly, the commercials are actually pretty good,” Frericks said in February. “They have Shane Gillis, who’s about the opposite of Dylan Mulvaney. You couldn’t have maybe someone more opposite. They have Post Malone, but the problem is they’ve lost a lot of their customers.”
