A second Bud Light executive has “taken a leave of absence” following backlash over the company’s decision to partner with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney for a campaign, according to reports.
“Given the circumstances, Alissa has decided to take a leave of absence, which we support,” an Anheuser-Busch spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal in an emailed statement. “Daniel has also decided to take a leave of absence.”
The spokeswoman did not provide further details regarding Blake’s decision to step down and the company has not yet announced his replacement.
The Epoch Times contacted an Anheuser-Busch spokesperson for further comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
The latest departures come amid an ongoing boycott of Bud Light following the company’s decision to partner with transgender social media influencer Mulvaney, a biological male who identifies as female.
Mulvaney, who has over 10 million followers on TikTok, has been documenting a transgender transformation dubbed “365 Days of Girlhood” on the video-sharing app.
Bud Light Controversy Explained
While Mulvaney has risen to prominence on the platform due to video diaries, Mulvaney was catapulted into the spotlight earlier this month when Bud Light sent the influencer a pack of beers with Mulvaney’s face emblazoned across them to celebrate both the influencer’s 365 days of being a “woman” and to promote the company’s March Madness contest.Mulvaney promptly took to Instagram—dressed like Holly Golightly from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”—to reveal the personalized cans.
In a second video shared on Instagram, Mulvaney drank a can of Bud Light in a bathtub.
The move sparked a backlash among Bud Light drinkers, many of whom called for a boycott, and Anheuser-Busch, which also produces Budweiser, lost up to $6.5 billion in stock value within days.
A day before Mulvaney’s videos featuring the personalized Bud light cans, Heinerscheid appeared on the “Make Yourself at Home” podcast, where she discussed her work at the brewery company and her ambitions to make it more inclusive.
“I’m a businesswoman. I had an obvious job to do when I took over Bud Light, and it was ‘This brand is in decline, it’s been in a decline for a really long time, and if we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand, there will be no future for Bud Light,'” she said.
“Representation is sort of at the heart of evolution,” Heinerscheid continued. “You’ve got to see people who reflect you in the work, and we had this hangover. I mean, Bud Light had been kind of a brand of fratty, kind of out-of-touch humor, and it was really important we had another approach.”
Bud Light Sales Tumble
Multiple high-profile figures, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, and Mike Crispi, the former Republican New Jersey primary candidate for Congress, have supported calls for a Bud Light boycott.In comparison, during that same week, sales of rival beers Coors Light and Miller Lite were each up by 18 percent during the same period, according to the analysis.
“When a transgender American posts a video about a brand of beer they enjoy and it leads to bomb threats, it’s clear that level of violence and vitriol against transgender Americans has to stop,” she said. “That’s what we’ve been seeing across the country, especially in statehouses. We’re going to fight alongside them to protect their rights, and they should be allowed to be who they are, who they want to be.”
