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Kendall Jenner and Other Celebrities and Top Models May Be Subpoenaed in Fyre Festival Case

Jan 29, 2019  •  Post A Comment

Celebrities and top models including Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski, along with the agencies that represent them, can be subpoenaed for their participation in the ill-fated Fyre Festival, a federal judge ruled.

“The models and so-called social influencers promoted what was billed as a VIP music festival on an island in the Bahamas, helping to generate buzz and sell tickets to the 2018 event. It was canceled at the last moment, stranding hundreds of people who had flown in for the concert,” CBS News reports.

“The models and celebs played a prominent role in marketing Fyre Fest,” the report adds. “Festival organizer Billy McFarland and members of his team posted videos of them frolicking on yachts and sipping cocktails at the purported site of what was supposed to be an exclusive music festival. But the event descended into chaos when facilities weren’t completed on time, leaving guests to spend the night in rain-soaked tents and without sufficient access to food or water.”

The event filed for bankruptcy in July 2017 when it was unable to pay vendors and other creditors, the report notes.

“McFarland is now serving a six-year prison sentence for fraud valued at $27.4 million,” the report adds. “He and his business partner, rapper Ja Rule (whose real name is Jeffrey Atkins), also faced a $100 million class action related to Fyre Fest. Atkins has claimed over Twitter that he never earned money from the event and that he was ‘bamboozled.'”

The report cites court records indicating Kendall Jenner was paid $275,000 to promote the event.

“The models, along with influencers and musical artists who had been scheduled to perform, were paid a total of $5.3 million in advance of the event, court records show,” the story reports.

The Fyre Festival debacle is the focus of two documentaries released this month, Hulu’s “Fyre Fraud,” which came out Jan. 14, and Netflix’s “Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened,” released four days later.

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