Dylan Mulvaney Recovers One Year After Bud Light Controversy

April 1, 2024, marks the first anniversary of the controversial partnership between transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney and Bud Light.

Last April, Mulvaney shared a video to her Instagram account showcasing a brand deal with Bud Light, including a customized can of the beer to promote her transition to womanhood. The partnership sparked widespread backlash against Bud Light, mainly by conservatives who criticized the brand's decision to partner with a transgender individual.

Bud Light and its parent company, Anheuser-Busch eventually distanced themselves from Mulvaney.

"This was the result of one can. It was not made for production or sale to general public. It was one post, not a formal campaign or advertisement," Anheuser-Busch inBev CEO Michel Doukeris said last May.

However, a year after the partnership and subsequent boycott of Bud Light, Mulvaney has continued to partner with other brands and even garnered some awards for her 365 Days of Girlhood video series, to showcase her gender transition. In 2023, a case study from Press Books found that at the time of posting the initial video with Bud Light, Mulvaney had over 1.8 million followers on Instagram and roughly 10 million on TikTok. As of March 2024, her following count on both social media platforms remains seemingly unchanged.

In April, Mulvaney showcased a partnership with Nike on social media, and a month later she showcased another partnership with K18 Hair. Both of her posts on Instagram with these brands were listed as paid partnerships on the platform. In August, Mulvaney was honored at the 2023 Streamy Awards and received a breakout creator award for her video series on social media.

"My life has been changed for the better," Mulvaney said in her acceptance speech at the award ceremony. "But on the flipside, there's also been an extreme amount of transphobia and hate, and I know that my community is feeling it, and I know that even our allies are feeling it."

In September, Mulvaney attended New York Fashion Week and walked on the runway for designers David and Phillipe Blond. A month later in October, Mulvaney was honored by the British magazine, Attitude, receiving the Woman of the Year award.

"Dylan Mulvaney is our Woman of the Year, supported by @VirginAtlantic," Attitude magazine wrote in a post on X, formerly, Twitter.

In her acceptance speech, Mulvaney said, "I'm so honored to be here with you all tonight, and some see me as the woman of the year, some see me as a woman of a year...Some people don't see me as a woman at all, which is why receiving this honor from a queer publication like Attitude means so much more to me."

In November, Mulvaney was listed in Forbes 30 under 30 for the 2024 year, after being named one of the top creators in 2023 by the publication.

Most recently this month, Mulvaney released a song titled "Days of Girlhood," which has received over 1 million views on YouTube and reached the top of the list of Genius lyrics chart.

In the months following the calls for a boycott for Bud Light, the beer brand saw sales and revenue drop, and many prominent names, such as Kid Rock and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, criticized the brand. However, in October 2023, the UFC and President Dana White announced a partnership with the brand and in December, Kid Rock spoke out about the boycotts saying he would like to see Americans show more support for Bud Light.

"Yes, it was a mistake, so, do I want to hold their head under water and drown them because they made a mistake, no, I think they got the message," Kid Rock said while speaking to Tucker Carlson in December. "If we brought them back up, that's kinda the America I want to live in. There's nothing wrong with giving a spanking...you don't spank them for the rest of their life."

Newsweek reached out to reps for Mulvaney via email for comment.