How Dylan Mulvaney ‘cured’ 2 years after Bud Light Scandal (exclusive)

Everything happens for a reason, Dylan Mulvaney Think. But “I’m still waiting to find out what the reason was,” she tells people in this week’s number and refers to the inevitable hatred she met online in 2023.

Within the pages of her new book, Paper doll: Notes from a late flowerOut Tuesday, March 11, Mulvaney, 28, reflects the infamous bid light accountDubbing it “beergate” and never mentions the brand by name.

At that time, San Diego -born Theater the actress -who received millions of followers through her “100 days of girlhood” videos that documented her transition on Tiktok -a deal to Make a sponsored video for bid light. The partnership aroused conservatives, which required a boycott in the middle of a transphobic counter -reaction.

Mulvaney felt abandoned and alone in the aftermath, before threats, stalkers and suicidal thoughts.

Two years later, “I’m about a thousand times stronger than I was before that situation happened,” says Mulvaney. “I am finally in a place that I have healed and I am in such a good mental main space. I feel that I am really ready for the world to know what that experience was behind the scenes. ”

The book, she adds, illustrates that “no matter who you are, what your identity is, if you are in a tough situation, there is a light at the end of the tunnel eventually.”

Mulvaney admits that she is not everyone’s cup of tea (“I’m a great personality. I’m a little musical theater Cringey, and it’s not for everyone!”), But she still sips on a beer, which she says she “will always love.”

“I really hope that we will see beer brands in the future to be inclusive and find unique and interesting ways to include others in the conversation and in marketing that may be tasteful and helpful in moving culture in the right direction,” she says.

Mulvaney writes in the book that she hoped that the Bud Light ad would be a “positive step towards trans acceptance.” She reminds to feel “disappointed” by Bud Lights afterwards and “personally felt that they did not condemn hatred against the trans community.”

Anheuser-Bush, the company behind Bud Light did not respond to people’s request for comment. In a statement from April 2023, the company said partly, “We never intended to be part of a discussion that shares people. We are in the industry to unite people over a beer.”

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Mulvaney tells People that Bud Light -Accounts has “really changed things in a very sad way” for members of the LGBTQ community. “I would never have taken that job if I knew any of these repercussions would have happened.”

Paper doll However, not about “beergate”. Elsewhere she dishes on connections, celebrity-run-ins (Kathy Hilton once called her a “hoot”), an eye-opening Ayahuasca trip and so much more. “It’s a messy book,” she says, “and I think it reflects me as a human being.”

With a podcast and a role in a new musical in London in the works, she feels optimistic about her future. Her book, Mulvaney, says, “is a way to spread trans joy.”

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At the end of the day, her only dream is to become a “Broadway diva” someday. “There is nothing that makes me happier right now than performing on stage and doing theater,” says Mulvaney, who last year performed her own single-woman show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

During these programs, she felt “finally the pure joy again and felt a happiness in a way I did not know if I had ever experienced again because it was gone for so long.”

“But I found it and I live in it,” says Mulvaney. “It feels so good.”

Paper doll: Notes from a late flower will be available to buy wherever books will be sold on March 11.