NOTE: This article is originally from April of 2023, when Nike announced its then-new partnership with Dylan Mulvaney. However, as Nike is still a left-leaning company and the issue has not gone away, it has been edited to keep it relevant into 2024, such as by noting the price action of Nike’s stock after the outrage regarding its partnership with Mulvaney grew, and other issues with the company cropped up.
As consumer outrage grew over Bud Light’s Dylan Mulvaney partnership in April of 2023, other woke companies shockingly jumped on board the Mulvaney train and inked deals with Dylan as well. Among them was sportswear giant Nike, which is now partnering with Dylan to sell sports bras. Predictably, that sat poorly with many conservative women.
Among those furious conservative women was Megyn Kelly. She, during an April of 2023 episode of her Sirius XM show, “The Megyn Kelly Show,” skewered the deal when speaking with political commentators Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson. Specifically, she hammered Nike for making Mulvaney the face of its sports bra lineup despite being “non-breasted,” saying:
“Nike sponsoring Dylan Mulvaney now for f****ing sports bra. I’m sorry, Dylan doesn’t have breasts. Dylan’s been taking some sort of a hormone that has turned Dylan into some — I don’t know what’s happening there. But those are not breasts.”
“And Dylan doesn’t need any sort of a bra — never mind a sports bra. The three ladies on this program right now have six boobs between us, and we actually know what it’s like to wear a bra, and no one would be inspired to buy one based on non-breasted Dylan Mulvaney prancing around in a Nike sports bra.”
Continuing, Kelly went on to say that it looks like Mulvaney has “an eating disorder” and shouldn’t be “anybody’s spokesperson for anything. If there were a woman who looked like that, she couldn’t get an endorsement because they say she clearly is unwell.”
Jashinsky, adding to what Kelly said, claimed the move by Nike was a “great glimpse into how divorced a lot of the decisions these big companies make — especially investment firms make. … They’re not in touch with the market. They’re completely divorced from market forces.”
Kelly also took issue with the claim that “trans women are women,” saying, “No … they’re not. Sorry. I mean, I know I’m being vulgar today, but this whole topic is bringing it up. Like, Trans women really are ‘chicks with d****.’ It’s true. It’s a short, catchy, catchphrase, but it’s really what’s happening.” Continuing, she added, “They’re not women,” she added. “They’re fake women. Biological men masquerading as women.”
Watch Kelly here:
Nike’s stock tanked in the wake of the deal, with conservatives causing the company bad press in America in the spring of 2023, while abroad it faced the issue of slow consumer spending growth in China, a key market on which it was relying for sales growth. As a result, its stock sold off in dramatic fashion. Fortune reported on the selloff at the time, saying:
“The stock slid 1.4% to $101.46 on Tuesday, falling for a ninth straight session in its longest losing streak since the company’s initial public offering in December 1980 . . .
“The rout has wiped out nearly $13 billion of Nike’s market value, which currently stands at $155 billion. Even before the recent slump, Nike had failed to keep pace with the advance in the broader market. It’s now down 13% this year, while the S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary Index has surged 29%.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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