Fyre Festival was somewhat an iconic moment in millennial culture and has lent itself to being the epitome of disastrous events. Been to a music festival that went slightly off track? ‘Fyre Fest 2.0’, mate.
Now, the festival organiser Billy McFarland has issued a tearful apology in his first interview since his release from prison in March.
For those of you that have no idea what I’m talking about and have clearly been hiding under a rock since 2017, let me fill you in quickly.
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Fyre Festival was a high-end music festival in the Bahamas launched by businessman Billy and rapper Ja Rule with the intention of promoting their music talent booking app for their company Fyre Media.
With advertisements for the event headed up by the likes of supermodels Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner and Emily Ratajkowski, the Exuma-based festival boasted luxury accommodations, big-name performances, Instagrammable food and celebrity appearances.
Think Coachella on steroids.
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But, of course, they never pulled it off, and paying guests were instead left stranded in the middle of an actual island to sleep in disaster relief tents and eat the saddest-looking cheese sandwiches I’ve ever seen.
Okay, so it may have been a bit of a ‘first-world problems’ situation, but the founder, McFarland, was actually convicted of fraud in 2018 and sentenced to six years in prison because of his actions, which saw him scam investors of the festival out of $26 million (£23 million).
Turning on the waterworks for his interview with Good Morning America’s Michael Strahan earlier today, the 30-year-old admitted his decisions leading up to the fraudulent organisation of the festival were ‘incredibly stupid’.
I mean, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work that one out, but go off, Billy.
Strahan went on to ask probably the one question we’re all dying to know the answer to: Why the f*** didn’t he just cancel the festival when he knew it was never going to work?
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To this, McFarland admitted that it was an act of desperation as he was determined to ‘prove himself’ to his staff and investors who also didn’t wholly believe in the project.
Well, he’s certainly proved himself… Just maybe not in the best possible way.
He said in the interview: “I was wrong. I messed up. I was so driven by this desperate desire to prove people right.
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“I had these early investors, backers, employees, and I think I was so insecure that I thought the only way to prove myself to them was to succeed and that led me down this terrible path of bad decisions.”
McFarland pleaded guilty to wire fraud in March 2018 after scamming a total of 80 investors into putting their cash into the deceptive festival.
He served four out of six years of his sentence before his release earlier this year.
Gabriella Ferlita