The Fyre Festival was one of the hottest events to happen in the 21st century, though not because of its roaring success, quite the opposite in fact.
Following the catastrophe that was the Fyre Festival, the mastermind of the idea, Billy McFarland, is facing six years imprisonment for wire fraud.
Chasing the bad guys isn’t over yet though as various news sources report a lawsuit has been filed against high-ups from the event and all the large amounts of cash they pocketed.
Fyre drew in some of the biggest names on Instagram (and in the world). Reps for people such as Kendall Jenner, Emily Ratajkowski, Lil Yachty, Pusha T, Migos, and Blink-182 are all being sued over money received from the fraudulent event.
Fyre Media’s bankruptcy trustee Gregory Messer is at the helm of the suit and is chasing money which the influencers apparently failed to disclose they were paid.
Messer is hoping to recover millions of dollars taken from defrauded investors and attendees. Such figures reported include Nue Agency LLC’s Pusha T, Tyga and Desiigner being given U.S. $730,000 for performance sets, International Creative Management LLC’s Migos, Lil Yachty and Rae Sremmurd being given $350,000 for performances, DNA Model Management LLC’s Emily Ratajowski being given $299,000 for promotion and of course, Kendall Jenner’s infamous Instagram post.
It is alleged that Jenner pocketed upwards of $275,000 for a singular Instagram post advertising the festival. Nowhere in the now-deleted post did Jenner disclose it was a paid promotion.
“You get reached out to by people to, whether it be to promote or help or whatever, and you never know how these things are going to turn out, sometimes it’s a risk,” Jenner explained to writer Amy Chozick, elaborating on her Fyre Festival partnership for an interview with The New York Times..
“I definitely do as much research as I can, but sometimes there isn’t much research you can do because it’s a starting brand and you kind of have to have faith in it and hope it will work out the way people say it will.”
Talent agencies representing the above celebs are said to have received over $2 million, all with a “clear lack of good faith” for not disclosing the paid aspect of the promoting.
Fyre Festival was a promotional festival to push a music app of the same name. It was dubbed as a “luxury music festival” that would give attendees luxurious accommodation, food and Bahamian scenery.
During the Fyre Festival’s inaugural weekend, the event experienced problems related to security, food, accommodation, medical services and artist relations, resulting in the festival being postponed indefinitely.
Following the event’s failure, which had guests sleeping in flooded emergency tents, it was revealed that many companies involved in preparing the event were never paid. It was also revealed that paid promoters never revealed their involvement.
The event was so terrible that it has even spawned two documentaries from Hulu and Netflix.
