Oh God, Not Another Fyre Fest
For whatever reason, another Fyre Festival is reportedly in the works?
Fresh out of prison for fraud charges regarding the initial disaster, Fyre Festival co-founder and con artist Billy McFarland tweeted, "Fyre Festival 2 is finally happening."
And in case you're having a bad day, here's a laugh: Despite over two million people having viewed McFarland's tweet, it boasts less than 2,000 likes. It's safe to say folks aren't falling for it this time.
Co-created by McFarland and JaRule (yes, that JaRule), Fyre Festival was promoted as a luxury music festival — with tickets going for over $1,000 — set to take place in the Bahamas during two weekends in 2017, one in April and the other in May.
Big names like Kendall Jenner, Emily Rataj, and Hailey Bieber even backed it (most of who were named in later lawsuits). Sounds semi legit, right? Wrong.
During the kick-off weekend of Fyre Festival, all hell broke loose as attendees arrived to an undeveloped spot on Exuma island with less-than-luxury — borderline inhumane — accommodations.
The so-called luxury villas? Crumbling FEMA tents. Those gourmet meals guests were promised? Cheese sandwiches consisting of sliced brown bread with some pale cheese slices slapped on top.
The icing on the cake? On the first day of the inaugural weekend, Fyre Festival tweeted that it would be "postponed" due to "unforeseen and extenuating circumstances — leaving a few attendees reportedly stranded on the Bahamian island claimed to be once "owned by Pablo Escobar."
So yeah, the initial Fyre Festival was fire, alright — as in a complete and utter disaster. It spawned two competing documentaries as released on Netflix (Fyre) and Hulu (Fyre Fraud).
In 2018, McFarland was sentenced to prison for six years for wire fraud in the organization of Fyre Festival. However, he got out early in March 2022 to relocate to a halfway house. His house arrest ended September of last year.
On the other hand, JaRule dodged major legal heat, cleared and dismissed from the $100m class-action lawsuit filed by the un-festival goers.
According to a tweet, the musician claimed he was, too, "hustled, scammed, bamboozled, hoodwinked, lead astray" with the festival fiasco. Though, he later called the festival fail "beyond brilliant" (in theory) during an interview in 2018 and turned the infamous cheese sandwiches into NFTs. Okay, JaRule.
Seeing as JaRule likes to troll, let's pray this is the case with McFarland's tweet. Hasn't anyone told the infamous fraudster that April Fool's is over?
