Dylan Mulvaney says she had to leave America ‘to feel safe’
Dylan Mulvaney made the trip to Peru after not feeling safe in the US. (Instagram)
Trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney said from Peru that she felt unsafe in the US following backlash to her Bud Light campaign
Mulvaney has been at the receiving end of intense transphobic abuse since she collaborated with Bud Light in April on a single sponsored Instagram post.
On Wednesday (12 July), she told her 10.7 million TikTok followers that she had taken a trip to Peru to get away from it all.
“OK, surprise, I’m in Peru,” she said.
“I feel safe here,” Mulvaney added. “It’s a little sad I had to leave my own country to feel safe, but that will get better eventually.
“I came here to feel something, and I definitely have. I have done shaman ceremonies that were like 10 years of therapy, it was wild.”
Mulvaney explained that she was holidaying alone.
“I used to do a ton of solo travelling, it’s the best,” she said. “If you can do a solo trip somewhere, it’s such a good way to get to know yourself better.”
Mulvaney, a musical theatre actor, achieved fame after coming out as trans in 2022 and starting a “Days of Girlhood” series on TikTok, sharing her transition journey.
In April, she uploaded a video to her Instagram in April announcing that Bud Light had sent her a personalised can of beer to mark the one year anniversary of the series.
The post was immediately hit with a wave of right-wing outrage from individuals calling for a boycott of the beer.
Supermarkets were vandalised, people were assaulted and Mulvaney became the focus of an unprecedented attack by conservative pundits.
Anheuser-Busch then received heavy criticism from pro-LGBTQ+ activists after they effectively abandoned Mulvaney, with chief executive, Brendan Whitworth, saying that the company didn’t want to be part of a conversation that “divides people.”
Mulvaney was left to face the continuing backlash, which she said has been negatively affecting her mental health.
During the latest clip, she said that, while she was enjoying the trip, she had started to miss things about the US.
“I am dying for some Trader Joe’s rolled chili and lime chips, but other than that I am so content,” she reassured her followers. “Most of all, this trip has me feeling like my own best friend again. And that is the best feeling in the world. I hope you feel that way about yourself too.”
Last month, the star decided to take a step back from posting about her transition journey.
During an interview with Them, Mulvaney said she knows that her video series has brought joy to hundreds of thousands of LGBTQ+ people across the world, but she wished she had considered a few things before posting her first clip.
“I just kind of wish I could tap myself on the shoulder, right before I made that video, the first one, and just be like, ‘Hey, let’s not… let’s make sure you’re in a good place and you are safe and that you’ve had the conversations with the people you need to talk to before you talk to everyone’.”
