Convicted Fyre Fest Founder Billy McFarland Ready For Second Act: This Time It's A Virtual Reality Project

Billy McFarland, the entrepreneur behind Fyre Festival — one of the most infamous event disasters — is back with a new virtual reality project. 

What Happened: McFarland, founder of Fyre Festival, the luxury music festival promoted by Ja Rule and Kendal Jenner, is out of prison and back with a new business venture called PYRT, pronounced as Pirate, reported Fox Business. 

McFarland owns $26 million in restitution for the disastrous Fyre Festival. 

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Speaking about what led to the debacle and if he sees himself in the same category as SBF, Anna Delvey and Elizabeth Homes, McFarland said, “I got away from what took me to Fyre, that was technology. I have been programming since I was 11 years old. Kept using tech to push boundaries and it introduced me to this wild world of entertainment, and I forgot where I came from.”

When asked if the scrutiny accompanied by the federal probation would hamper his plans for a fair launch, he said, “I think a lot of people hope that I crawl into a hole and essentially die, but I need to find pride.”

McFarland was sentenced in 2018 after a two-weekend-long luxury music festival in the Bahamas in 2017 never came to fruition, reported The New York Times. Jeffrey Atkins, known as rapper Ja Rule, was McFarland’s business partner. 

The con came to light when people arrived at the location and found no luxury accommodation or promised musical acts. Documentaries about the sham festival are available on Netflix and Hulu.

Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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