Trans actress Dylan Mulvaney has spoken publicly about President Donald Trump comparing her to CNN reporter Katilan Collins.
“To the president — thank you for reminding me that I am more powerful than I even knew. To quote my favorite recording artist, Shea Diamond, I am America,” Mulvaney, 29, said, referencing the 2020 track by fellow trans woman Diamond, 48, in a a Sunday, July 26, TikTok video before concluding her statement with “love ya” and blowing a kiss to the camera.
Trump, 80, compared Collins, 43, to Mulvaney during a speech at the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Friday, July 24. After Collins received an award for her coverage of his highly publicized Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president took aim at Collins: “I thought Kaitlan had really made it big with a major new sponsorship, but then I informed that it wasn’t her on the Bud Light can, it was Dylan Mulvaney,” he told the crowd.
Mulvaney’s TikTok response began by congratulating Collins, noting that she felt “incredibly honored to be compared to her in any way, and I hope that she keeps doing all the great work.” Mulvaney then moved onto why she believed the president brought her into his speech.
“The president also brought up a video I did over three years ago, and, mind you, I’ve been kind of flying under the radar … doing my little musicals, singing, dancing. And yet, I’m still his hot topic of conversation all these years later. It seems to me like I might be, like, the one that got away,” she told fans, adding that she has made a profound mark on critics of her transgender identity.
“I am permanently burned into their retinas, I am microchipped into their minds,” she joked.
Mulvaney then stated that she refused to let herself get upset over serving as a “diss track” subject for the president. “A few weeks ago, I would have probably been more upset about this, but luckily, I was ghosted last month by a hook up who I really liked, and what I realized was from that experience [was] I shouldn’t want to be with someone who doesn’t really want to be with me,” she explained. “So maybe, I shouldn’t want to be professionally supported by an administration that doesn’t personally support me or so many others in this country.”
Mulvaney then turned her reference within the president’s speech into a positive. “In fact, maybe being publicly mocked and criticized by this administration is actually, like, the greatest compliment of all because it puts me in the company of some of the most brilliant, empathetic people in our world today,” she said. “I do still wonder, like, why is it so important to them that I don’t find success? What is it that I have that they don’t? Oh my God, [it’s] freedom.”
The TikTok followed Mulvaney’s more subtle support of Collins via her Instagram Stories one day prior. Sharing an inspirational quote attributed to former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, which was the same quote Collins shared via Instagram in a recap of the annual fundraiser intended to celebrate the First Amendment, Mulvaney seemingly nodded to the reporter.
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent,” the quote read.
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