Influencer Dylan Mulvaney appeared on ABC’s The View, reflecting on being labeled as an “activist” while also expressing appreciation for support received from the transgender community during the Bud Light boycott.
When co-host Sara Haines asked Mulvaney on Monday about “doing brand deals with some companies,” the social media influencer jokingly responded with a smile, “Oh, I did, honey.”
Mulvaney, who rose to fame with the viral TikTok series “Days of Girlhood,” has attracted more than 1 billion views for capturing candid and creative takes on transitioning from a biological man to a transgender woman.
However, the 28-year-old became a controversial figure in 2023 after partnering with Bud Light, a collaboration that sparked widespread backlash and a boycott of the beer brand.
In an interview with Fox Business in February, Anson Frericks, former president of operations at Anheuser-Busch, revealed that the company still hadn’t recovered from the boycott, stating, “They lost 30% of their customers, millions of customers, billions of dollars of shareholder value over the last couple of years.”
Mulvaney, reflecting on the situation, told The View that the struggles the transgender community faces will ultimately be documented in “the history books.”
The social media influencer added, “I want to make sure my piece of it is advocacy because people often label me as an activist when I’m just a musical theater girl who wrote a book.”
Haines asked Mulvaney how the backlash from the Bud Light campaign affected mental health concerns, especially in terms of “suicidal ideations.” Mulvaney addressed this candidly, acknowledging the toll it took while sharing how encouraging the transgender community was during a difficult period.
Despite the controversy surrounding the Bud Light partnership, Mulvaney remains unapologetic about the decision.
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“When I took that deal, I didn’t think anything of it because I felt, ‘Oh, this is perfect.’ It felt like an organic thing to do because it was just another part of me,” the influencer explained. “I think what was so confusing about it was that it just kept going. Then I realized I had become the poster child for this thing [transgenderism], when trans is just a small part of me.”
The former musical theater star still identifies as a “baby trans” at only three years into the transgender transition.