Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid to be subpoenaed over Fyre Festival payments
Fyre Festival’s mastermind might be behind bars, but his myriad cronies—Ja Rule, Jerry Media—are still roaming the streets. Currently, the courts are trying to figure out just what happened to the millions upon millions Billy McFarland raised from investors in the lead-up to the festival, as the genius apparently kept no accounting records during that time. Now, Jerry Media, who handled the social media promotion of the festival, is said to be on the verge of a subpoena, as are several of the consultants, service companies, and models hired to help promote the festival.
The Daily Mail reports that a judge has granted an ex parte order in favor of Fyre Festival trustee Gregory Messner, who, in his role overseeing Fyre Media’s bankruptcy, will now be able to force those involved to reveal how much they were paid for their services. That includes the agencies representing models like Bella Hadid, Hailey Baldwin and Emily Ratajkowski, who were all featured in a silly-ass video promoting the festival’s luxury experience. In McFarland’s own words—captured in Netflix’s Fyre documentary—the video was about “selling a pipe dream to your average loser.”
Messner is also apparently looking into a $250,000 payment made to Jenner, one that preceded a social media post announcing that artists from G.O.O.D. Music—the record label founded by Kanye West—would headline the festival. That now-deleted post made no mention that she was being paid to post it, which prompted a warning from the Federal Trade Commission and a larger discussion about disclosure rules for sponsored social media posts.
While both Netflix and Hulu’s recent documentaries about the festival were fascinating, it was Hulu’s Fyre Fraud that placed an emphasis on McFarland’s financial malfeasance, which was, shall we say, pretty goddamned reckless.