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The creator of the disastrous Fyre Festival now admits he believes the ‘most f***ed up part’ of his scheme was lying to those who invested $26 million into his hyper-exclusive event.
In a recent interview on the Full Send Podcast, Billy McFarland, 31, discussed the moral and ethical issues when it came to the festival.
‘I lied to investors to get money and like morally, ethically as a human, like totally the most f***ed up part. But the worst like business decision was time,’ McFarland said in the interview when asked what the biggest dilemma with the event was.
McFarland, who was released from prison earlier this year after serving four years out of his six-year sentence, also told the hosts people around him had tried to warn him that it would be all but impossible to pull the event off in just four months.
Fyre Festival fraudster Billy McFarland, 31, said in a recent interview that the worst part of his scheme was lying to investors who gave him $26 million to pull off the event
‘You didn’t have anyone at the time who was like, “Yo, this — you shouldn’t do this. Like, you shouldn’t move this fast.” Or like, “It’s not gonna work this way.” Like, was there anyone trying to like, speak logic in that sense?’ host Bradley Martyn asked.
‘For sure. But I was kind of caught up in this mindset that like, we have to go really fast. And the downside is there’s great artists in a beautiful location, but it’s not perfect,’ McFarland responded.
‘And I didn’t comprehend the downside is that people can’t stay there. It’s just like not ready. I just like didn’t understand the downside,’ he continued.
While McFarland said that the biggest moral and ethical dilemma he faced was the defrauding of investors, he said the largest logistical issue he faced was the timing of the planning.
‘The biggest business decision was time,’ McFarland said. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. We launched like a trailer to see if anyone would care and it kinda worked. And then we were like “alright, four months, we’re doing this.”‘
The latest developments from his podcast episode come just weeks after the fraudster sat down for his first post-prison interview on Good Morning America alongside Michael Strahan.
The GMA anchor asked why he didn’t cancel the festival when he realized it was going to flop.
The 30-year-old fraudster – who served four years of a six-year sentence behind bars after pleading guilty to fraud – insisted he also lost everything in the con, claiming he ‘came back to New York with $100 in his pocket’
McFarland said in the early November interview that he was so desperate to ‘prove himself’ to his employees and investors and that’s why he refused to listen.
‘I was wrong. I messed up. I was so driven by this desperate desire to prove people right,’ he said.
‘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.’
At the time, McFarland did not comment on how he plans to pay back the $26 million in restitution.
Fyre Festival fraudster Billy McFarland choked up as he discussed the $26 million con during his first TV interview since his release from prison in March
‘I need to apologize and that is the first and last thing that needs to be done. I let people down,’ he elaborated. ‘What I told investors was wrong and I think the hardest thing for me is the trust that I violated… whether it was friends, investors, or employees, people gave up a lot to try and make this happen.
‘How do I call them now and look them in the eye when I let them down? I just really should have canceled everything and stopped lying.
‘I should have listened [to my employees]. There is no excuse.’
He also said he lost everything in the scandal and ‘came back to New York after with $100 in my pocket,’ he said.
McFarland said in a recent interview that it was the lack of repercussions while working in the website design industry that led him to believe he could pull off Fyre Festival in four months
McFarland hyped up the Fyre Festival to secure investments in the event
In the latest interview, McFarland explained that it was his early career in website design space that made him feel confident enough to go for it without fear of repercussions.
‘I can build a website in a week if it doesn’t work, no one cares, right? Like the idea flops and no one gets hurt. So I applied that same like, tech logic to trying to build a city in the middle of nowhere. And it was just so stupid. It just didn’t work,’ he said.
‘Yeah. Cause involving people obviously makes it a much different situation,’ co-host Martyn responded.
‘I didn’t know how to like, extrapolate like, okay, a website, the user can’t log in, no one’s hurt. Whereas like, “Hey, now I’m trying to house thousands of people in the middle of nowhere for three or four days.” It’s different,’ McFarland added.
In 2018, McFarland pleaded guilty to counts of wire fraud in after scamming 80 investors into putting money in the bogus ‘luxury’ Fyre Festival – which had no food, toilets, music, or even basic accommodations.
A pathetic cheese sandwich that was handed to guests in a Styrofoam container became a representation of the disaster that was Fyre Festival after it was shared on social media, where it quickly went viral
However in reality the event had no food, toilets, music, or even basic accommodations. Despite being aware that the festival was going to be a disaster, McFarland continued to insist he could pull it off, blaming that decision on his ‘insecurity’
The Fyre Festival was promoted by models like Bella Hadid and Kendall Jenner, and saw attendees paying thousands for a luxury music festival hosted on a Caribbean Island that Pablo Escobar once used to traffic cocaine
Just months after his March release, however, the fraudster appears to be back to his old ways, possibly cooking up another
McFarland in October posted a cryptic video to his TikTok page in which he teased an event to which ‘everybody’s invited.’
The fraudster characterized the event as a way for him to make amends for his previous misdeeds, prefacing the video with the admission that he ‘f***ed around.’
In the video he revealed a cryptic map of what appeared to be a treasure map of a Caribbean island, and promised he would reveal all the details of his latest scheme in November.
‘As you might Know, I f***ed around,’ he said. ‘And because of that, I definitely found out.’
‘You might have guessed, but I’m working on something new,’ he continued. ‘This time it’s a little crazier, but a whole lot bigger than anything I’ve ever tried before.’
‘I promise I’m going to tell you everything in November, but before we get there, there’s one thing you need to know now. This time, everybody’s invited.’
McFarland, 31, posted a cryptic video to his TikTok page in which he teased an event to which ‘everybody’s invited’
He concluded by ripping the map off the board to reveal a phone number.
When dialed, the phone number asks for your contact information, and sends along a text with link to a ‘first clue.’
The clue is a YouTube video featuring a bikini-clad woman swimming amongst sharks in Caribbean blue water.
The mystery event could be another festival, according to TMZ.
The fraudster characterized the event as a way for him to make amends for his previous misdeeds, prefacing the video with the admission that he ‘f***ed around’
In the video he revealed a cryptic map of what appeared to be a treasure map of a Caribbean island, and promised he would reveal all the details of his latest scheme in November
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