Three days after the Fyre Festival was cancelled due to lack of food, hospitality and talent, the music festival's organisers Ja Rule and Billy McFarland have been slapped with a $100 million lawsuit. Celebrity attorney Mark Geragos filed papers on Sunday accusing the duo of fraud.
Rapper Ja Rule and business partner McFarland are facing a $100 million lawsuit
The lawsuit claims that customers experienced a "lack of adequate food, water, shelter, and medical care" which "created a dangerous and panicked situation among attendees — suddenly finding themselves stranded on a remote island without basic provisions." The papers further described the disastrous festival as more The Hunger Games or Lord of the Flies rather than Coachella.
The event was originally advertised as a two-weekend luxury getaway on a private inside in the Bahamas, complete with high-end food and five-star accommodations. Organisers even enlisted supermodels like Bella Hadid and Kendall Jenner to help promote the festivities. When music lovers arrived on the island on Thursday they were met with unfinished infrastructures and complete chaos on the festival grounds.
Organisers even enlisted supermodels like Bella Hadid to promote the festival
Festival-goers were quick to hop on social media to show off their "gourmet food," which was "no more than a bread and slice of cheese," as stated in the lawsuit. They also posted photos of their unappealing acommodations that looked more like relief tents than the luxurious cabanas they were promised. Even headliners like Blink 182 dropped out at the last minute after realising that the stage production wouldn't be up to their standards.
Festival-goers were quick to post photo on social media of their unappealing accommodations and 'gourmet' food given to to them
Rapper Ja Rule took to Twitter on Friday to express his regret over the highly-unorganized situation. "I truly apologize as this is NOT MY FAULT… but I’m taking responsibility I'm deeply sorry to everyone who was inconvenienced by this," he told his followers.
That same day, the rapper and his partner Billy released a statement to Billboard, in which they admit the lack of preparation for the festival was "unacceptable" before adding that "the Fyre team takes full responsibility for the issues that occurred." The duo also promised to provide full refunds in addition to free VIP tickets to next year's event for all those affected by the cancellation.