Summary: The explosively bad Fyre Festival has been slammed with a second class-action lawsuit.
When the creators of Fyre Festival sought out to make a luxury musical event, they may not have known that their careers would go up in flames. According to The Hollywood Reporter, organizers Ja Rule and Billy McFarland have already been sparked with two class-action lawsuits.
On April 29, 2017, Fyre Festival had its grand opening, and the Bahamas-based music festival was advertised to be like a heightened Coachella. There were supposed to be two weekends of revelry with musical headliners like Blink 182 and Major Lazer, Instagram models like Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid adding sexy ambiance, and fancy accommodations and celebrity-chef cooked food. While Coachella is already pricey, Fyre Festival’s elite price tag of $1,000 to $125,000 could only be afforded by the richest of the rich.
Because of the price and expectations, festival-goers were shocked last Friday when they arrived on their private island in the Bahamas to see FEMA-like tents, feral dogs, crappy food, trash on the ground, and no major musical acts.
Festival-goer William Finley told Billboard that his tent was like a “disaster relief tent” and inside of it, there was “a mattress on some sort of bed frame. They’re not that uncomfortable but the tents are so poorly made that they’d blow over in a second if there was any wind or rain.”
Earlier this week, celebrity attorney Mark Geragos filed a $100 million lawsuit on behalf of attendee Daniel Jung against Ja Rule and McFarland, claiming that the pair had committed fraud, breach of contract, breach of good faith, and negligent misrepresentation.
On Tuesday, a second class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of three female Fyre Festival guests, Chelsea Chinery, Shannon McAuliffe and Desiree Flores, against Ja Rule and McFarland for similar claims. The lawsuit was filed by personal injury attorney, John Girardi, who said that his clients and others were tricked by more than 400 social media influencers and celebrities into thinking they were going to have a good time.
“As Plaintiffs began to grasp the dire nature of the situation, upon witnessing the complete lack of infrastructure necessary to host such an event, a panic enveloped the crowd,” Girardi wrote in the complaint. “Plaintiffs were stuck on the island, with no way off.”
In the new lawsuit, Jenner, Hadid, Alessandra Ambrosio, Emily Ratajkowski, and others were also accused of violating FTC regulations because they failed to disclose that they were paid to promote the terrible event.
Like Geragos’ filing, the second lawsuit is seeking class-action status. Giradi’s proposed class group will be divided into three categories–people who bought tickets but didn’t go because of awful word-of-mouth, people who bought tickets but were unable to attend because flights to the island were canceled, and people who attended the terrible event.
Geragos’s lawsuit is seeking unspecified damages and a restriction that Ja Rule and McFarland can never host a similar event ever again. This may be a big problem for the two because, for some reason, they want to try a Fyre Festival 2018.
After the disastrous first weekend, Fyre Festival 2017 was canceled and guests were promised a refund, which is still pending.
“Fyre Festival set out to provide a once-in-a-lifetime musical experience on the islands of Exuma,” organizers said on Instagram last week. “Due to circumstances beyond our control, we must postpone this experience. We are working tirelessly to ensure each guest leaves the island safely and ask for everyone’s patience and cooperation as we continue to provide ongoing updates via email and our official social media channels as they become available, including refund information.”
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Photo courtesy of Your EDM