Two Republican senators have opened an investigation into the relationship between Bud Light and trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney, adding fuel to a wave of transphobic hate sparked by a short video shared on her Instagram account in early April.
Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee are accusing Bud Light maker Anheuser-Busch of marketing beer to teenagers by partnering up with the 26-year-old TikTok star.
Mulvaney, a social media superstar with nearly 11 million followers on TikTok and 1.8 million on Twitter, became the subject of much anti-trans hate after partnering up with Bud Light for a social media campaign during the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament.
The move was promptly followed by right-wing backlash, which included social media posts of angry customers pouring beer down the drain and even musician Kid Rock shooting cases of the beer and saying “F—k Bud Light. F—k Anheuser-Busch.”
On Thursday — seven weeks after the video was initially posted — Senators Cruz and Blackburn sent a letter to Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth urging the beer giant to “sever its relationship” with Mulvaney, and direct her to “remove any Anheuser-Busch content from (her) social media platforms.”
The two senators accuse the company of “marketing to individuals younger than the legal drinking age,” claiming Mulvaney’s audience “skews younger than the legal drinking age and that Mulvaney’s social media content appeals to young viewers,” according to a news release.
In the letter, which repeatedly misgenders Mulvaney, Cruz and Blackburn also urge Whitworth to “publicly apologize to the American people for marketing alcoholic beverages to minors.”
“A massive percentage of Dylan Mulvaney’s audience are kids,” Cruz said Thursday in a Fox News interview. “Budweiser was trying, I believe, with this ill-fated marketing attempt, to target teenagers,” he added.
The senators’ letter comes amid an unprecedented wave of attacks on the rights of transgender people in the U.S.
More than 520 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in statehouses across the country this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign. Over 220 of those specifically restrict the rights of transgender and nonbinary people.
