In an era of big, sensational scams that keep on giving — Operation Varsity Blues, the SoHo Grifter, Theranos — it’s hard to pick the most notable one. But Fyre Fest, the 2017 attempt at a luxury music festival that enlisted the help of mega-influencers like Bella Hadid, Hailey Baldwin, and Kendall Jenner to help promote it and left hundreds of wannabe influencers stranded in the Bahamas, ultimately becoming the subject of two warring documentaries, is still a leading contender.
Most people involved with the festival apologized for it in some way, Hadid with a Notes App statement, in which she wrote that she “initially trusted this would be an amazing & memorable experience for all of us,” and Baldwin with a donation to charity.
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But Jenner remained silent — that is, until now. In an interview with The New York Times, Jenner addressed the controversy for the first time. She emphasized how little she knew about the Fyre Fest organization when she signed on to promote it because it was a brand-new company.
“You get reached out to by people to, whether it be to promote or help or whatever, and you never know how these things are going to turn out, sometimes it’s a risk,” she said. “I definitely do as much research as I can, but sometimes there isn’t much research you can do because it’s a starting brand and you kind of have to have faith in it and hope it will work out the way people say it will.”
Fair enough. After all, who but Fyre creator Billy McFarland could have predicted the sad cheese sandwich mess the festival eventually became? But now — much like the rest of us — Jenner might feel a little more savvy to the many scams that lie in our midst.
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