I was about to wax nostalgic about how the Fyre Festival scam was a simpler time, but it really happened just three years ago. It feels like it happened a decade ago or longer. The Fyre Festival was supposed to be an all-encompassing music festival for wealthy millennials who would fly to the Bahamas and then spend days in luxury tents, eating four-star cuisine and listening to all their favorite bands. Instead, it was all a scam. There was barely any food, no bands turned up and those luxury tents were just some muddy cots. The festival’s organizers – Billy McFarland and Ja Rule – paid models and celebrities to hype the festival on social media. Kendall Jenner was paid $250,000 for Instagram posts promoting the festival. It was all a lie! And now she’s paying a big fine:
Kendall Jenner has settled a lawsuit concerning her involvement with the disastrous 2017 Fyre Festival. The supermodel has agreed to pay $90,000, for promoting the fiasco music festival in a since-deleted Instagram post, according to court documents filed on Wednesday. Jenner, 24, was sued in August 2019 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York by Gregory Messer, who is recovering funds for creditors that lost money investing in the festival.
Messer claimed Jenner was allegedly paid $275,000 to post about the event on Instagram, making her millions of followers believe it “would be filled with famous models on an exotic private island with ‘first-class culinary experiences and a luxury atmosphere.’” Although, the lawsuit states Jenner “did not indicate to the public that she was paid to promote the Festival.”
The court documents claimed Jenner suggested in the post’s caption that her brother-in-law, Kanye West , would be performing at the festival.
“Further, Jenner’s reference to her ‘G.O.O.D. Music Family’ as ‘headliners’ at the Festival, intentionally led certain members of the public and ticket purchasers to believe that Jenner’s brother in law, famous musician and GOOD Music record label founder Kanye West, may be or would be performing at the Festival,” the lawsuit stated. “In fact, Mr. West was never going to perform at the Festival. This conduct demonstrates a clear lack of good faith on Jenner’s part.”
Infamous Fyre Festival promoter Billy McFarland, was sentenced to six years in the slammer for the botched event in the Bahamas. He recently requested an early release from prison , citing fears of the COVID-19.
This just serves as a reminder that momager Kris Jenner isn’t always the wisest manager for her daughters, and she’s gotten them into some bad situations. Granted, she also helped make Kylie Cosmetics a billion-dollar company, but Kris encourages her daughters to do anything for a paycheck. That’s what happened here. Kris and Kendall thought this would just be an easy paid-IG sponsorship post and it blew up in their faces. Anyway, yeah, I’m glad Kendall had to pay back some of the money.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
It seems to me PMK puts more energy on just a couple of her children. Kourtneys poosh seems so forced and passionless and poor Robs everything seems half a***d.
i thought you posted a new Madame Tussaud’s wax figure of Kendall as the cover picture….not one bit of soul or emotion reflected in that face and eyes
It’s such a strange look. Nothing in the eyes, fake smile, posing, I’m uncomfortable just looking at it
The G.O.O.D. music family part is a bit strange to me. That doesn’t imply that it was literally going to be Kanye- it could have been Big Sean, Pusha T, John Legend, Teyana Taylor, Tyga and Desiigner.
The finalized performance list included ” Pusha T, Tyga, Desiigner, Blink-182, Major Lazer, Disclosure, Migos, Rae Sremmurd, Kaytranada, Lil Yachty, Matoma, Klingande, Skepta, Claptone, Le Youth, Tensnake, Blond:ish, and Lee Burridge.”
So it wasn’t an outright lie if she said G.O.O.D. Music FAMILY.
The pictures of her pretending to read is just…*chefs kiss”
Lol.
I might be on a YACHT, but I am SMART. Look at me reading a BOOK. I’ve taken so many NOTES.
Yes! That first picture she is not even looking down at the book! Ridiculous! I especially like the post-it note tabs in the book like she is “studying” the content.
I think she marked everything she didn’t understand. That’s why there’s so many of them.
It was such a small amount compared to what she earns each year. She should pay back 100% plus some extra for the regular people who got scammed and really hurt in this. It may not be a legal requirement but it would help repair her reputation hit and she would not miss the money at all
That was the price to pay for not clearly stating that she made a paid promotion.
I noticed that the Kardashian often display paid partnership on their profiles without stating it.
90K is a drop in the bucket. She should of at least had to pay the 250K she got for promoting the festival.
Exactly this. Not only is $90K pocket change to her, it’s significantly less than what she was paid for promoting the festival. Hardly an effective deterrent.
This! Why not the full amount? She still made out $160K ahead!
If she had any sense in her head, she’d have offered the full amount back to the group trying to recoup funds. It would be good PR for her, helps those scammed, and wouldn’t be that big a deal to her.
Can you imagine getting paid that much just for some stupid tweets? I’d do it, and then write big ol’ checks to a ton of charities.
It was already 3 years ago??? I thought it was last year
Wow it goes way too fast
I’m sure she’ll survive. She should return that pink fashion disaster as well.
She should have had to pay it all back. At the same time, I don’t feel all that sorry for the people who were scammed. Believing advertising can be risky, but we all make our choices. I guess I can’t garner a lot of sympathy for the types of people, aka the “wealthy millennials” who had enough money to afford it and were vapid enough to be interested. Why is the concept of models being present so alluring? Ah yes, for Instagram. 🙄
That list should be called O.B.S.C.U.R.E. Family. Only heard of 2 on that list. Yawn. Waste of money for that reason alone.
That’s cool. Too bad the organizer Billy and Ja havent had to pay back the people they stole from. Specifically the people on the island who never bot paid for their labour. I couldn’t care less about Kendall’s fee. I take far more umbrage with what those two did. Kendall was just being a model. I wonder if all the other models who promoted the festival had to pay the money back.
Absolutely – that’s what she should be doing with the balance of the money, give it to those on the island who were taken advantage of.
That’s not what I said. I said where is the money that the ORGANIZERS – Billy and Ja – stole from the islanders at?? Why havent THEY been made to back those people.