Fyre Festival Hit With Another Class-Action Lawsuit
By Evan Minsker and Jazz Monroe.
Fyre Festival founders Ja Rule and Billy McFarland were hit with a $100 million lawsuit on Sunday. Today, the two men and Fyre Media have been hit with yet another class-action lawsuit, THR reports. Attorney John Girardi is representing Chelsea Chinery, Shannon McAuliffe, and Desiree Flores in a lawsuit over breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation, and fraud suit. The new complaint, filed in L.A. County Superior Court, claims that the festival’s founders defrauded fans by paying over 400 social media personalities and celebrities to promote the event. It also claims that those social media posts went against FTC regulations. “Social media ‘influencers’ made no attempt to disclose to consumers that they were being compensated for promoting the Fyre Festival,” wrote Girardi.
The complaint says that Ja Rule and McFarland knew they couldn’t pull off the festival as advertised at least a month prior to its start, but offered no warnings to ticket holders. In addition to Chinery, McAuliffe, and Flores, the lawsuit looks to benefit anyone who purchased tickets but did not attend after learning about the festival’s conditions, ticket holders who couldn’t make it after flights were canceled, or anyone who made it to the festival and were stuck there for any amount of time. The complaint seeks restitution, punitive damages, and disgorgement of any profits.
Scheduled to take place in the Bahamas this past weekend, the luxury festival was postponed after spinning into chaos. The Bahama Ministry of Tourism condemned the festival, Ja Rule apologized, and McFarland said there would be a make-up festival next year. (The fest most recently gave ticketholders the option to opt-in to VIP status for next year’s fest, as opposed to a refund.) The other class-action lawsuit, filed by celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos, claimed that the festival “was closer to The Hunger Games or Lord of the Flies than Coachella.”
Read “Searching for Answers in Fyre Festival’s Viral Disaster.”
This story originally appeared on Pitchfork.
More from Pitchfork:
Michelle Obama’s 5 Best Music Moments
The 50 Best Rap Mixtapes of the Millennium
30 Artists You Need to Follow on Social Media
Does College Radio Even Matter Anymore?
