The public backlash against Bud Light is growing after the company featured transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney in a promotional campaign, according to country music singer John Rich.
“The customers decide. Customers are king,” Rich, who founded the Redneck Riviera bar and restaurant in Nashville, said Monday to Fox host Tucker Carlson. “I own a bar in downtown Nashville called Redneck Riviera. Our number-one selling beer up until a few days ago was what? Bud Light. We got cases and cases and cases of it sitting back there. But in the past several days, you’re hard-pressed to find anyone ordering one. So as a business owner, I go, hey if you aren’t ordering it, we got to put something else in here. At the end of the day, that’s capitalism. That’s how it works.”
Decades-long fans of brands are “finding it hard to stay loyal” to them, and going for other companies they can support. “And there are tons of up-and-coming American brands that people are flooding to right now,” said Rich.
Earlier this month, Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Bud Light, sent custom beer cans to Mulvaney featuring the trans activist’s face, a move that was criticized as pushing the transgender agenda. The custom can was created to celebrate a full year of Mulvaney transitioning to “girlhood,” according to the trans star’s Instagram post on April 1. In the ad, Mulvaney is shown promoting Bud Light drinks with the hashtag #budlightpartner.
In a video, singer Kid Rock used Bud Light cans as target practice to express his anger at the promotional campaign. “Grandpa’s feeling a little frisky today,” he said.
Mike Crispi, a podcast host and former Republican New Jersey primary candidate for Congress, had called for a boycott. “Boycott Bud Light and NEVER DRINK IT AGAIN EVER,” he stated in a tweet on April 3.
Last week, Rich asked his Twitter followers about replacing Bud Light after he pulled out the beer brand from his bar. “It’s their right to market it however they want. They’re making a bet [that] this is going to sell more product,” he said about Anheuser-Busch’s marketing tactic.
