Kid Rock’s fight with Bud Light seems to be over. TMZ caught the “Bawitdaba” rocker drinking from an Anheuser-Busch brand can at a Colt Ford concert in Nashville on Thursday. This was just a few months after he recorded himself shooting cases of the beer with an assault rifle in response to the brand’s partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
In April, Kid Rock made a video in which he shot 12 packs of Bud Light and said, “F-k Bud Light, and f-k Anheuser-Busch.” This was in response to angry conservatives who were calling for a boycott of Bud Light. Even though “Devil Without a Cause” singer Kid Rock was very against the brand, his Nashville restaurant, the Honky Tonk Rock & Roll Steakhouse, kept serving it. In answer to the backlash, Brendan Whitworth, CEO of Anheuser-Busch, said in a statement, “We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people. We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer.”
Mulvaney was quiet for weeks because she was getting death threats, but in June she went on TikTok to call out Anheuser-Busch for not standing by her during the backlash. “For months now, I’ve been scared to leave my house. I have been ridiculed in public. I’ve been followed. And I have felt a loneliness that I wouldn’t wish on anyone,” she said in a recording. “If this is my experience from a very privileged perspective, know that it is much, much worse for other trans people.” Mulvaney added, “For a company to hire a trans person and then not publicly stand by them is worse in my opinion than not hiring a trans person at all because it gives customers permission to be as transphobic and hateful as they want.”
“And the hate doesn’t end with me,” she said. “It has serious and grave consequences for the rest of our community. And we’re customers, too. I know a lot of trans and queer people who love beer.” Mulvaney said that, “To turn a blind eye and pretend everything is okay – it just isn’t an option right now. And you might say, ‘But Dylan, I don’t want to get political.’ Babe, supporting trans people, it shouldn’t be political. There should be nothing controversial or divisive about working with us.”