Mulvaney weathered that storm—and gained more notoriety and followers in the process. But when it was announced that she was stepping into the role of Anne Boleyn in December of 2025, she experienced deja vu, with conservatives criticizing her casting, calling it “woke” and lamenting on social media that they “made Anne Boleyn trans.” There were so many negative comments that the Six social media team made its X account private. “The protection, safety, and support of the Six cast has always been, and remains, our highest priority,” said Six producers in a joint statement. “While we welcome passionate engagement with the show, aggressive, threatening, or abusive behaviour is never acceptable.”
“All of a sudden, the far right started attacking me and the show,” Mulvaney says, sipping her cocktail. “And I’m like, since when have you ever cared about Broadway? They don’t care. They would have never gone to see this, and if they had, they would hate it even if I wasn’t in it.”
While it’s arguably more ridiculous than Beergate, this go round, Mulvaney doesn’t feel as lonely as the first time the pitchforks were coming her way. “When I think about Beergate, I felt pretty isolated as far as not having a lot of support,” Mulvaney says. (For what it’s worth, she hasn’t worked with the beverage brand since the kerfuffle.) But with Six, she feels more supported. “The producers are on my side. My cast is checking in on me. I think that’s where I’m like, Oh my God, I’m not actually alone.”
She also can’t help but notice some “weird parallels” between herself and Anne Boleyn, who was beheaded for treason after being caught having an affair. In the show, Mulvaney sings the showstopping number “Don’t Lose Ur Head” (get it?), which chronicles the series of unfortunate events of Boleyn’s untimely demise with the repeated refrain: “Sorry, not sorry about what I said. I’m just trying to have some fun. Don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t lose your head. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
Like Boleyn before her, Mulvaney is a girl who incurs the wrath of the masses by simply living her life. “There’s all these extremists in the world who see me as this horrible, problematic woman. I think me and Anne just wanted to have a voice,” says Mulvaney. “We were so passionate about feeling seen and heard—that we have the right to have an opinion and to celebrate ourselves. Even when you hear about Anne Boleyn today, it’s often in a very negative light—that she was this promiscuous woman. If you actually look back at the historical accuracy, she was very unproblematic and did all these great things for the world, but people don’t hold onto that.”
Mulvaney is aware that the bigots and haters are out there—she sees them on her phone every day. But when it comes to her day-to-day life, she feels protected by “the bubbles that I exist in” as a professional theater performer in New York. Still, she wonders: “Where are they? I got to tell you, it was pretty rough the past two years,” she admits. “It does freak me out when I go into Trader Joe’s, and I’m like, Oh, does my cashier hate me or think that I’m not a woman?”
