🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
Since the conservative boycott of Bud Light in April, transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney has been the target of cyber-bullying.
However, the 26-year-old has refused to take the abuse lying down, clapping back at a troll who called her disgusting on Instagram. Mulvaney shared to her Stories a screenshot of the message, which reads: "You should not exsist in this world you should be buried alive.
"You are disgusting. Trans freaks will be a thing of the past... Are you dead yet," the message added. Mulvaney simply replied: "No I'm modeling."
Before becoming a TikTok sensation, Mulvaney was best known for starring as Elder White in the musical The Book of Mormon, a role she won shortly after graduating from college. However, the actress began documenting her transition on the video-sharing platform in 2021 through her 365 Days of Girlhood series, and has more than 10 million followers.
In March, Mulvaney received a letter from Kamala Harris, with the vice president thanking Mulvaney for her work advocating for the transgender community.
"You continue to break barriers and inspire young people across our Nation and around the world," Harris said in the birthday message.
"I am grateful for your dedication and courage, and I hope you continue to use your platform to spread positivity and create change," the vice president added.
However, just a month later, Mulvaney found herself at the center of a boycott, after Bud Light sent her a crate of beer cans with her face on them to celebrate her first year as a woman. Conservatives were outraged by the partnership, with sales of the beverage declining as a result.
The boycott was backed by right-leaning famous faces including country singer Travis Tritt and rapper Kid Rock, who filmed himself shooting a crate of Bud Light with an assault rifle. As a result of the backlash, Mulvaney said she was followed on and off for two months and had to go into hiding due to transphobes.
In July, Mulvaney said she was "feeling more like herself again" after a rough summer, but slammed Bud Light for not supporting her during the controversy.
"I took a brand deal with a company I loved and I posted a sponsored video to my page and it must have been a slow news week because the way that this ad got blown up, you would have thought I was on a billboard or on a TV commercial, or something major. But no, it was just an Instagram video," Mulvaney said on TikTok.
"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...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."
Newsweek has reached out to Dylan Mulvaney for comment via email.
About the writer
Sophie is a Newsweek Pop Culture and Entertainment Reporter based in Lincoln, UK. Her focus is reporting on film and ... Read more