Kendall Jenner, Emily Ratajkowski, and other celebrities slated to take part in the “Fyre Festival” were asked to return payments during bankruptcy proceedings.
Four years ago, fraudster Billy McFarland and rapper Ja Rule drew thousands of attendees — many of them Millennials — to a remote island in the Caribbean by promising a luxury music festival “where the tropical sun shines all day, and our celebrations ignite the night.”
Tickets ranged between $1,200 and $100,000. Attendees were promised stays in luxury villas and dining that included “local seafood, Bahamian-style sushi, and even a pig roast.” Instead, they received dilapidated FEMA tents, rain-soaked mattresses, and cold cheese sandwiches.
Some scenes from inside the #FyreFestival tents. Yes that is weed. pic.twitter.com/ZiDKmRWf2V
— Elizabeth Pears (@BizPears) April 28, 2017
As The Daily Wire recently reported, Gregory Messer — the Fyre Festival’s bankruptcy trustee — has spent the past four years filing suit against various celebrities in an attempt to provide ticketholders with refunds.
Messer sued Kendall Jenner — who was paid $275,000 by McFarland to endorse Fyre Festival — in August 2019. He was able to collect $90,000 of the original payment.
NBC News explained:
Messer also alleged that Jenner “intentionally” misinformed the public by claiming that her brother-in-law, Kanye West, would be performing at the event, after she tweeted, “So hyped to announce my G.O.O.D. Music Family as the first headliners for @fyrefestival.” She provided her followers with a promotion code they could use when purchasing tickets to supposedly “get on the list for the artists and talents afterparty on Fyre Cay” in that same tweet.
Other influencers were paid handsomely to sponsor and attend the event.
As the New York Post said:
[Emily] Ratajkowski returned $37,500 of her $300,000 payment. Rock band Blink 182, which famously tweeted that it was backing out even as attendees arrived on the island, returned $157,100 of the $265,000 it had been paid.
After deducting expenses for his law firm, Messer will only be able to provide $1.4 million for ticketholders. Each individual would therefore receive four cents for each dollar of original spending.
The Fyre Festival saga, however, may be far from over. McFarland — who is currently serving a six-year prison sentence — is writing a memoir entitled “Promythus: The God of Fyre.” He reportedly intends to publish the book as soon as possible, because Fyre Festival 2017 “will not be a one and done event — it’s happening again.”