Entertainment
Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland admits ‘lying to investors’ for money in first TV interview from prison
Fyre Festival founder Billy McFarland has admitted to ‘lying to raise money’ from investors in his first TV interview from prison.
McFarland, 29, spoke to ABC News’ The Con this week from behind bars at the Elkton Federal Correctional Institute in Lisbon, Ohio, where he is serving six years for fraud.
The disgraced entrepreneur was behind the infamous music event in 2017, which was promoted as a luxury festival but descended into chaos. Festival-goers arrived to shocking scenes of FEMA tents instead of luxury villas, basic sandwiches as opposed to Michelin-star meals and barely any drinking water.
Needless to say, the festival wasn’t able to go ahead and it emerged as a huge scandal masterminded by McFarland.
Admitting to his investors scam, the incarcerated businessman said: ‘I knowingly lied to them to raise money for the festival, yes.
‘The crime was inexcusably lying about the status of the company to get the money I thought I needed for the festival.
‘Had we given ourselves a year or two and had I obviously not made the terrible decision to lie to my backers, I think we could have been in a bit better place, but regardless of the mistakes that I made or what made things go wrong.
‘So that’s where things started and ended.’
McFarland admitted there’s ‘no excuse’ for his actions and now wishes he decided one morning to ‘just stop’ before the fraud escalated.
‘I legitimately thought the festival was going to be executed,’ he said.
McFarland added: ‘There’s no way I can describe it other than, like, what the f**k was I thinking? And I think that applies to so many people on just so many decisions that I made.’
Following his conviction in 2018, McFarland was made to forfeit $26 million he’d made from investors.
Last April, it was reported that McFarland was seeking early release from prison due to coronavirus fears but this was denied.
The highly-publicised scandal has already received the TV treatment with two documentaries, Netflix’s Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened and Hulu’s Fyre Fraud, released to critical acclaim.
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