Fyre Festival, billed as an ultra-luxury destination music experience, is facing its second major lawsuit of this week.
The first lawsuit seeks £80 million for alleged fraud perpetrated by Fyre Media, Ja Rule, and Billy McFarland. The event was such a catastrophe that it was cancelled before it even started. Though the festival has now offered an explanation, tensions are still running high.
The festival was so poorly conceived, you'll remember, that it spawned countless mocking tweets and drew negative attention to both Bella Hadid, who apologised, and Kendall Jenner, who's been bouncing from one PR disaster to the next.
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Hadid, Jenner, and the use of influencers is at the centre of the latest lawsuit, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The suit, filed Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, was filed by personal injury attorney John Girardi, representing Chelsea Chinery, Shannon McAuliffe, and Desiree Flores. Their lawsuit alleges that Ja Rule, Billy McFarland, and Fyre Media engaged in breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation, and fraud.
The suit boils down to this: The complainants allege that Fyre tricked attendees by promising that influencers like Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and Emily Ratajkowski would be attending. The suit also alleges that the more than 400 social influencers paid to promote the festival didn't adequately disclose that their posts were ads.
"Social media 'influencers' made no attempt to disclose to consumers that they were being compensated for promoting the Fyre Festival," Girardi writes.
The lawsuit paints a dire picture of the events.
"As Plaintiffs began to grasp the dire nature of the situation, upon witnessing the complete lack of infrastructure necessary to host such an event, a panic enveloped the crowd," writes Girardi. "Plaintiffs were stuck on the island, with no way off."
The proposed suit includes three classes: Those who bought tickets but didn't go to Miami, those who bought tickets but didn't make it to the Exumas, and those who made it onto the island and were stuck there for any length of time.
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