The models involved in helping to promote the disastrous Fyre Festival will reportedly be subpoenaed by a court in an effort to find out how much money they were paid for their part in promoting the debacle using their celebrity.
According to Billboard, supermodels Bella Hadid, Hailey Bieber, Emily Ratajkowski, Elsa Hosk and Kendall Jenner will reportedly be subpoenaed after their names and brand were used to promote the failed luxury music festival as a legitimate event as its founder, Billy McFarland, serves six years in prison for various counts of fraud. The stars and influencers will need to disclose how much they were paid in an effort to figure out what happened to an estimated $26 million McFarland raised by investors, according to E! News.
The move comes from the trustee overseeing the bankruptcy of Fyre Media, Gregory Messer. It is part of a larger effort to understand what happened to millions of dollars paid out to talent by McFarland in the weeks leading up to the event. In early January, a judge reportedly signed off on the subpoenas for various talent and modeling agencies to help locate some $5.3 million that McFarland allegedly paid so that they would use their influencers to help promote the event on social media and appear in a now-viral promotional video for the Fyre Festival.
Messer is also reportedly looking into a $250,000 payment made to Jenner, who posted that members of Kanye West’s G.O.O.D Music family would be performing at the event in the Bahamas, which never happened. She was previously issued a warning by the Federal Trade Commission because her post about the festival was a paid advertisement, which she did not make clear to her millions of followers. Billboard reports that performers Soulja Boy and Waka Flocka Flame will receive subpoenas over their promotion of the event as well.
The Fyre Festival gained viral attention in 2017 when hundreds flocked to an island in the Bahamas under the promise of musical guests, luxury living arrangements, gourmet food and even private yachts. However, they arrived to find almost none of the promises made were true and instead were greeted to hurricane-relief tents, limited food and almost no way off the island. Interest in the debacle has been renewed in recent weeks thanks to a pair of documentaries about it from both Hulu and Netflix.
