Should celebrities who promoted Fyre Festival be held responsible?
Attorneys Ed Martin and Seth Berenzweig weigh in on those responsible for the fraudulent Fyre Festival during The Arbiter on 'The Ingraham Angle.'
A trustee in the Fyre Festival bankruptcy case is seeking payouts from several stars involved in the ill-fated fraud, including Blink-182, Kendall Jenner and Emily Ratajkowski.
One lawsuit seeks $500,000 from Blink-182, who was set to headline the festival before dropping out shortly before its doomed kickoff.
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According to Variety, the suit claims that the payments were part of Fyre Festival organizer Billy McFarland’s attempt to defraud investors and should be refunded from the payees.
Blink-182's agency, Creative Artists Agency (CAA), is also listed as a defendant in the case, which seeks $585,000 in liabilities. Another agency, ICM, which represents Rae Sremmurd, Lil Yachty and Migos, was named in the suit for repayment of funds paid to those artists. Nue Agency, which represented Pusha T, Desiigner and Tyga, was sued for $730,000.
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Mark Hoppus, Travis Barker and Matt Skiba of Blink-182 perform on ABC's "Good Morning America" at Rumsey Playfield, Central Park on July 19, 2019 in New York City. The band dropped out of the disastrous Fyre Festival over technical concerns for their staging. (Getty)
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Festival director Yaron Lavi was also sued for $315,000.
Blink-182 singer Matt Skiba previously told NME, “I had a bad feeling about that event. I consider myself a pagan and a witch. With every inch of my energy I wanted Fyre not to happen. I put all the electricity and energy in my body against that thing happening.”
“We pulled out for technical and logistical issues and the rest of it crumbled to s—t because that’s what it was," he said. "It was bulls—t. I used my witchy ways and it seemed to work. I’ll take responsibility and everyone can blame me. Shazam. I was on my couch feeling somewhat guilty, but very relieved that I wasn’t there with people stealing from each other.”
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Emily Ratajkowski and Kendall Jenner attend #REVOLVEfestival Day 1 on April 14, 2018 in La Quinta, California. The models were each sued over Instagram posts about the Fyre Festival that they allegedly never said were sponsored. (Getty)
“I didn’t want a bunch of people to be marooned on bulls—t island," he clarified. "I put all my energy into it not happening because for all the tea in China I didn’t want to be a part of something like that.”
Jenner was sued for $275,000 for posting on Instagram about the Fyre Festival, while Ratajkowski was hit with her own suit for $300,000 for the same.
The lawsuits allege that the supermodels demonstrated a “clear lack of good faith” because they didn't list their Instagram posts as sponsored ads.
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In 2018, Fyre Festival promoter McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison. McFarland admitted to defrauding investors of $26 million in the 2017 Fyre Festival and over $100,000 in a fraudulent ticket-selling scheme after his arrest in the scam.
"The defendant is a serial fraudster," Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald said at the time. The Fyre Festival was "not a good idea gone bad" as McFarland sometimes has wanted to portray it, she said.
"Mr. McFarland is a fraudster and not simply a misguided young man," Buchwald said. "Bad intent was longstanding."
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The festival, promoted as an ultra-luxurious event and "the cultural experience of the decade," was supposed to take place over two spring 2017 weekends on the Bahamian island of Exuma.
Customers who paid $1,200 to over $100,000 hoping to see Blink-182 and Migos arrived to learn musical acts were canceled. Their luxury accommodations and gourmet food consisted of leaky white tents and packaged food.
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Customers lashed out on social media with the hashtag #fyrefraud.
Reps for Blink-182, Ratajkowski and Jenner did not immediately return Fox News' requests for comment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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