Billy McFarland tells Inside Edition that the event will be organized by "the right people" and his role will only be in marketing it.
Convicted fraudster Billy McFarland is at it again. Newly released from jail after serving four years for fraud following the Fyre Festival debacle, McFarland tells Inside Edition that he is ready to start planning another Fyre Festival.
“What’s different this time around is having proper time and the right people around the table to do the logistics,” McFarland says in an interview with Inside Edition. “And not letting me near any of it.”
His role this time around, he says, will be to do the festival’s marketing and nothing else.
“Maybe they’ll give me leeway to mess up the bathrooms or serve cheese sandwiches,” McFarland jokes.
In 2017, McFarland organized a music festival in the Caribbean, where celebrities, supermodels and fans were charged top dollar for luxury villas and gourmet food.
In reality, the event resembled a tent city. A tropical storm led to wet mattresses and stranded festival goers, and instead of gourmet food, attendees were served the infamous cheese sandwiches.
McFarland, now 32, ended up spending four years behind bars for fraud, and was released last year. “[Jail] was super rough,” he says, “Being separated from friends and family for so long was the hardest part getting back to work. Now, every day feels like a dream.”
McFarland still owes $26 million to those scammed by the original Fyre Festival. He claims he has rounded up hundreds of investors – including two with very deep pockets – to finance a Broadway show and Fyre Festival, the sequel.
“He has got a lot of money to pay back,” Glencrest Global Venture Capital’s John Cerasani tells Inside Edition. “He ain’t going to do that working at Dunkin' Donuts so he needs some good people around him to really promote this thing.”
