Dylan Mulvaney opens up about suicidal ideation in new book following vile Bud Light backlash
In her new book Paper Doll, Dylan Mulvaney opens up about having a ‘desire to no longer exist’ following Bud Light backlash. (Getty)
Dylan Mulvaney has explained the full extent of the backlash against her following her partnership with beer brand Bud Light, and revealed the profound toll it took on her mental health.
Writing in her new book, memoir Paper Doll: Notes from a Late Bloomer, the 28-year-old trans actress and social media sensation explained that the furore made her feel a “desire to no longer exist”.
While Mulvaney was fairly well known for her social media series ‘Days of Girlhood’, in which she chronicled the first year of her life since coming out as a trans woman, her partnership with beer brand Bud Light in early 2023 made her the punching bag of the right-wing press.
After posting a 50-second video of herself in Aubrey Hepburn-inspired get-up, in which posed with a can of Bud Light with her face imprinted on it, conservative media caught fire. The brand endured a boycott, musician Kid Rock shared a video of him shooting cans of the stuff, and the brewing company behind Bud Light – Anheuser-Busch – received bomb threats.
In her book, Dylan Mulvaney explains in detail how the controversy upended her life for months, and left her battling suicidal ideation.
“Finding any ounce of joy after Beergate has been, well, a struggle,” she writes in chapter three of her book. “My other emotions were getting plenty of exercise: at the forefront was my anger toward conservative media and capitalism, followed by the fear of losing my career, and grief for the privacy I once had. And of course there’s my guilt over any potential setbacks to the trans community or god forbid violence…”
She explains feeling “disappointed” in Bud Light – though she doesn’t mention the company by name – as she “personally felt they did not condemn hate towards the trans community”.
Though she wanted to make a video to address and “fix” the situation, she was advised by lawyers and publicists to let the controversy “die down”.
“…But their advice had me in a stalemate because… it wasn’t dying down. Somehow, even a month later, news stations were still reporting on the ad every single day. Memes of me continued going viral. Boycotts were sticking. I stayed quiet and felt all the self-love, confidence, and strength I had found this last year leave my body with every passing day,” she writes.
During those weeks, paparazzi found and camped outside her home to take photos of her, while she was hounded in-person by reporters, with one asking her what she would say to “women who are being raped by your kind in prison”. Her brand deals were paused, while her father was threatened by strangers.
She writes that she initially had to hire a bodyguard to stay on her driveway – “Generic Beer refused to pay for security” – and became paranoid that those in her personal circle were betraying her, after she discovered someone close to her had been leaking information to the press.
In the book, Dylan Mulvaney credits her best friend Lily, as well as gender non-confirming artists Alok Vaid-Menon and Jonathan van Ness for helping her through that time.
“But the one thing I wasn’t sharing with any of them was my desire to no longer exist. To fade into nothingness,” she explains, adding that she refused to seek help at a treatment centre a she didn’t want conservative press to label her and other trans people as “psychos”.
“The days turned to weeks and the weeks turned to months. This whole situation started to feel more and more like a video game that I was losing,” she shares. “My suicidal thoughts are kind of like my new game: how long can I go without wanting to die?”
Weeks and months after the initial video, and Mulvaney remained a presence on right-wing podcasts, radio shows and in column inches.
“My desire to vanish into thin air was occurring multiple times a day. I would fall asleep thinking about not waking up, and how peaceful that sounded to me. I never had any intentions to act on these thoughts, but the peace and comfort I felt from them were deeply problematic,” she confesses.
“As sad as some people would be to see me go, I also knew that it would bring joy to others. I was mostly attracted to the idea that I no longer would feel the weight of the world or the future of transness on my shoulders.”
Eventually, the negative thoughts calcified into a “numbness that took over my whole being. The emotions that once were so alive, although not positive but still present, eventually went silent. I was tired of fighting”.
Ultimately, she was kept going by those who remained in her TikTok comment section praising her strength, and sharing how her visibility had inspired them; including trans youth who had come out to their parents since her videos went viral.
“These positive figures assemble an army against my dark thoughts,” she rounds off.
Paper Doll: Notes from a Late Bloomer is available now.
Suicide is preventable. Readers who are affected by the issues raised in this story are encouraged to contact Samaritans on 116 123 (www.samaritans.org), or Mind on 0300 123 3393 (www.mind.org.uk). Readers in the US are encouraged to contact the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255.
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