Dylan Mulvaney has called out Bud Light for failing to stop the backlash she faced after her promotional post for the alcoholic beverage brand.
The transgender influencer was thrust into the spotlight last year after she shared a post posing with a can of the popular beer Bud Light, which seemingly upset a lot of customers. In response, both Mulvaney and the beverage company doubled down on the collaboration, but just a few months later, it now seems as though there have been communication issues between the two themselves.
Check out the video that caught flak from conservative beer drinkers:
In June of the same year, the activist expressed her disappointment in the company, telling her millions of followers that she was "waiting for the brand to reach out" to her.
"I was waiting for the brand to reach out to me, but they never did. I've been scared to leave my house. 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."
Anheuser-Busch, the parent company of Bud Light which has allegedly suffered a $20 million loss in market cap value as well as approximately $1 billion in lost sales since the March Madness advertisement, responded to the criticism in a statement.
"The privacy and safety of our employees and our partners is always our top priority. As we move forward, we will focus on what we do best – brewing great beer for everyone and earning our place in moments that matter to our consumers,"
Though it did not directly address Mulvaney or her comments, fans believed that it was in response to the 27-year-old's earlier statement.
Now, almost a year after the ordeal, Mulvaney has spoken out yet again but this time, she revealed that she had a counter-pitch for the company in the hopes that it would win their customer base back.
"I did have an idea how to fix last year's situation. I come from a comedy background, it can be very healing and it can appeal to both sides," she told the audience at the SXSW festival in a panel discussion titled 'Role of Brands & Media in Fighting Hate.'
"I thought how fun if we'd done a Western commercial, where it was a cowboy at the end of a bar and a trans person on the other (end) and there's one beer in the center," she continued, before whistling a Western-style soundtrack and adding: "Just because we could have a laugh and to show that as much as these are all very real world things there's also some compassion, we all like beer. It doesn't have to be separate."
She added that after the backlash she faced for her Bud Light post "certain brands didn't even continue speaking with me".
Mulvaney added: "I could have been so integral to the solutions but they continued - I think of it like a parent, the parent doesn't put a stop to something then they bullying can continue.
"These brands need to step up and let people know it's not okay."
She revealed that the abuse she experienced as a result of the Bud Light campaign was "disheartening" after finding she was "followed and harrassed in public".
Anheuser-Busch has not yet responded to the claims.
