Billy McFarland
Fyre Festival Founder Billy McFarland Is a Free Man—And Planning a Comeback
Infamous Fyre Festival founder and convicted felon Billy McFarland is out of prison after serving less than four years. McFarland was released early on March 30th and then transferred to community confinement until August 2022, Deadline reports. And now that the disgraced festival organizer is free, he’s planning a comeback and may even start a new company. “I’d like to do something tech-based,” McFarland told the New York Times. “The good thing with tech is that people are so forward-thinking, and they’re more apt at taking risk. If I worked in finance, I think it would be harder to get back. Tech is more open. And the way I failed is totally wrong, but in a certain sense, failure is OK in entrepreneurship.” “At the end of ...
Fyre Fest’s Billy McFarland Released Early from Prison
Fyre Fest co-founder Billy McFarland has been released early from prison and is currently living in a halfway house, according to Billboard. McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison in 2018 for the fraudulent festival, which promised attendees a luxurious Bahamas experience complete with catered meals, luxury villas, and performances from the likes of Migos and Blink-182. Instead, guests were stranded in a tent city offering little more than school lunch food. McFarland pleaded guilty to bank fraud, wire fraud, and lying to investigators. In October 2020, the con artist was placed in 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement after recording a tell-all podcast from prison. Six months later, he was released from solitary in Lisbon, Ohio’s FCI Elkton prison and transferred to FTC Oklahoma City...
Fyre Festival Founder Billy McFarland Released From Prison to Halfway House
McFarland has been released from the Milan Federal Correctional Institution in Milan, Michigan, where he was being held, according to the Bureau of Prisons website and confirmed by his attorney Jason Russo. He is now under the management of Residential Reentry Management New York — the administrative office overseeing halfway houses located in southern New York, eastern New York and New Jersey. TMZ first reported the news. McFarland’s release date from the halfway house is currently set for Aug. 30. In 2018, McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison after admitting to defrauding investors in the disastrous 2017 Fyre Festival, which was promised to be a luxury destination music event with extravagant promotion from A-list celebrity influencers. But when ticket-holders showed up to the ...
Happy Anniversary, Fyre Festival: Relive the Memes That Took Down Billy McFarland
Oh, Fyre Festival. The gift that keeps on giving. When a gaggle of vapid influencers pay a notorious scam artist thousands of dollars to fight for mattresses on a decrepit beach with less infrastructure than post-1986 Chernobyl, the Internet did what it did best—roast them. From that cheese sandwich to the legendary Andy King, the imagery from Fyre Festival is timeless. To remember the best festival that never was on its four-year anniversary, here are the best memes from 2017 that helped take down Fyre’s scammer-in-chief, Billy McFarland. If you know, you know @TheSecretVice Live from Fyre Festival The cheese sandwich from hell Sad and bougee @_maleficentt It’s Always Sunny In The Exumas The only guy who enjoyed Fyre KATNISS EVERSCHEME Has anyone seen Ja? Keeping Up With ...
Class Action Fyre Festival Suit Reaches $2 Million Settlement for Attendees
Prior to its catastrophic downfall, it at one point seemed that Fyre Festival could command any price for a coveted ticket to the Great Exuma event. Now, four years in the rearview, it ended up being the attendees who would be compensated for their troubles. Well, at least some of them anyway. According to The New York Times, 277 ticket holders have reached a settlement with Fyre Festival amounting to a total of $2 million—that’s $7,220 apiece. Due to the stratification of ticket prices, which ranged from $1,000 to $12,000 a pop, and with some limited luxury packages priced in the tens of thousands, it’s difficult to say whether anyone came out ahead or even broke even in terms of financials after all of this. The initial class action suit was submitted for a cl...
Fyre Fest’s Billy McFarland No Longer in Solitary Confinement
<span class="localtime" data-ltformat="F j, Y | g:ia" data-lttime="2021-04-17T23:48:31+00:00“>April 17, 2021 | 7:48pm ET Fyre Fest co-founder Billy McFarland is out of solitary confinement after spending six months in lockup for his participation in a podcast interview, according to Insider. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons database, McFarland was released and transferred to FTC Oklahoma City from FCI Elkton prison in Lisbon, Ohio, where he was previously held in solitary. “It was punitive. At first, they said he violated rules by speaking to the media — which there is no such rule,” McFarland’s attorney, Jason Russo, told Insider. “Then they accused him of doing three-way calls, which you’re not allowed to do — but these were n...
Fyre Fest’s Billy McFarland Placed In Solitary Confinement Following Launch of Podcast
Billy McFarland’s newly launched Fyre Fest podcast has reportedly landed him in solitary confinement. According to the New York Times, McFarland was placed in 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement, and may remain there for up to 90 days or more, pending an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. “We believe the investigation stems from his participation in the podcast and the photographs that were taken and utilized in the trailer, which were all properly taken,” McFarland’s lawyer Jason Russo told the Times. “We don’t believe he’s violated any rule or regulation, and there can’t possibly be anything else. He’s been a model prisoner there.” A spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons declined to comment and told the Times the agency does not discuss the housing arrangements o...
Fyre Festival Founder Billy McFarland Started a Podcast and Ended Up in Solitary Confinement
That’ll teach him. Fyre Festival founder/convicted felon Billy McFarland tried to skirt the rules in prison by starting his own podcast. The aptly titled Dumpster Fyre was launched earlier this week and he appeared via phone in an interview with Jordan Harbinger. As the pod’s description of that episode says: In the premiere episode of Dumpster Fyre, Jordan Harbinger interviews a remorseful and seemingly humbled Billy McFarland. Calling from prison, Billy reflects on his mistakes while exposing the culmination of events leading to the Fyre Festival disaster. Well, that landed him in solitary confinement. According to the New York Times, he was thrown in there for participating in the show. “We believe the investigation stems from his participation in the podcast an...
Billy McFarland Has Launched a Tell-All Podcast Called “Dumpster Fyre” from Prison
The infamous face of Fyre Festival, Billy McFarland, is ready to tell his side of the story about how “the greatest party that never happened” all went down. You may be surprised to hear that McFarland seems to have had a coming to terms with the role of his involvement in the disastrous event. “When I think about the mistakes that were made and what happened, there’s no way that I can describe it but just, ‘What the fuck was I thinking?” McFarland told The Daily Mail. Of course, the marketing “guru” has a top-notch name for his forthcoming tell-all podcast: “Dumpster Fyre.” McFarland recorded the podcast in a series of 15-minute phone interviews from the Elkton Federal Correctional Institution, where he is se...
You Can Buy These Items from the Fyre Festival Merchandise Collection Seized from Billy McFarland
Thanks to the mythical implosion of the dumpster fire that was Fyre Festival, you can now get your hands on a memento from the notorious event. The US Marshals Service is auctioning off merchandise seized from the festival’s disgraced founder, Billy McFarland, to augment efforts to offer restitution to his victims. From July 30th through August 13th, you can bid on 126 items, including loungewear, bracelets, and retrospectively humiliating tokens emblazoned with the phrase, “a conspiracy to change the entertainment world.” According to US Marshal Ralph Sozio, McFarland was planning to sell the merchandise even after his arrest following the festival’s historic descent into ignominy. “The proceeds from the sale of these items, all traceable to McFarland’s...
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