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'I LIED': Scamster Billy McFarland comes clean over $26M Fyre Festival as he hopes to launch NEW EVENT

Billy McFarland also opened up about people warning him that it would be impossible to pull off the event in four months
UPDATED NOV 29, 2022
Billy McFarland admits scamming investors to get $26 million to pull off the con Fyre Festival (Instagram/@fullsendpodcast)
Billy McFarland admits scamming investors to get $26 million to pull off the con Fyre Festival (Instagram/@fullsendpodcast)

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Billy McFarland, the founder of the con Fyre Festival, admits to scamming $26 million from investors for his hyper-exclusive event that is extremely necessary for him to pull off. It's been four years of him being found guilty, however, he never really talked about his involvement in the humongous scam.

Regarding his scheme, the creator of the disastrous event now admits that he believes that the 'most fu***d up part' was lying to his investors. Discussing the moral and ethical issues concerning the festival, McFarland opened up in a recent interview on the 'Full Send Podcast.' When asked about what was his biggest dilemma with the event, the 31-year-old responded "I lied to investors to get money and like morally, ethically as a human, like totally the most f***ed up part. But the worst like business decision was time."

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After serving four years out of his six-year sentence, McFarland was released from prison earlier this year. He also talked to the host about the people around him warning that it would be impossible for him to pull off the event in just four months. The host Bradley Martyn asked him "You didn't have anyone at the time who was like, 'Yo, this - you shouldn't do this. Like, 'you shouldn't move this fast.' Or like, 'It's not gonna work this way'. Like, was there anyone trying to like speak logic in that sense?"

To this, McFarland responded "For sure. But I was kind of caught up in this mindset that like, we have to go really fast. And the downside is there's great artists in a beautiful location, but it's not perfect". He further continued saying "And I didn't comprehend the downside is that people can't stay there. It's just like not ready. I just like didn't understand the downside."

Though McFarland admitted that the biggest moral and ethical dilemma faced was scamming the investors, he also said that the largest logical issue he had to face was the entire time of the planning. He told the host that "The biggest business decision was time. I don't know what was I thinking. We launched like a trailer to see if anyone would care and it kinda worked. And then we were like 'alright, four months, we're doing this.'"

According to the Daily Mail, in early November, McFarland was first interviewed by Michael Strahan on 'Good Morning America' after his release from prison. The GMA anchor asked McFarland why he did not cancel the festival despite knowing it was going to be flop, to which he responded that he refused to listen as he was so desperate to 'prove himself' to his employees and the investors.

He elaborated on his need to apologize to the people who trusted him and said, "I need to apologize and that is the first and last thing that needs to be done. I let people down. What I told investors was wrong and I think the hardest thing for me is the trust that I violated...whether it was friends, investors, or employees, people gave up a lot to try and make this happen."

"How do I call them now and look them in the eye when I let them down? I just really should have canceled everything and stopped lying," he further added. However, he did not comment or clarify how will he be paying back the $26 million in restitution at the time. The fraudster says that he has lost everything in the scandal. He said that he came back to New York with $100 in his pocket. 

McFarland told that his early career in the website design space gave him the confidence to go for it without the fear of any consequences. "I can build a website in a week if it doesn't work, no one cares, right? Like the idea flops and no one gets hurt. So I applied that same like, tech logic to trying to build a city in the middle of nowhere. And it was just so stupid. It just didn't work," he explained.

McFarland was found guilty in 2018 and charged on grounds of wire fraud in scamming 80 people into investing money in the Frye Festival announced as a luxury event that in reality had no music, food, toilet, or even basic accommodation facilities. Reportedly, it seems that the fraudster is planning another scam months after his release in March, hinting at another business venture. 

In October, on McFarland's TikTok page, he posted a cryptic video he teased an event that appears to be a treasure map of a Caribbean island. "I promise I'm going to tell you everything in November, but before we get there, there's one thing you need to know now. This time, everybody's invited," he said, characterizing the event as a way for him to make amends for his misdeeds in the past. According to TMZ, this mystery event could be another festival. At the end of the video, he rips the map off the board, revealing a phone number. On dialing, contact information is asked and a text with a link to a 'first clue' is sent. The clue is a video on YouTube that features a bikini-clad woman swimming amongst sharks in the Caribbean blue water.

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