Kendall Jenner to Pay $90,000 in Fyre Fest Lawsuit Settlement
Written by SOURCE on May 20, 2020
Kendall Jenner has reached a settlement in a lawsuit that pertained to her involvement with the legendarily disastrous Fyre Festival. Specifically, she has settled over the charge that she promoted the festival on her Instagram page in a photo that has since been deleted. It’s also worth noting is that her IG post contained no disclosure that she was being paid to put it up.
Before the decision came down, the case was being weighed by a bankruptcy court in New York.
As a condition of this settlement, Jenner has agreed to pay $90,000, according to court documents reviewed by the website Women’s Wear Daily. Considering she was paid a reported $275,000 for the post (as per court documents), it could’ve been a lot worse. Those documents also say that Jenner had suggested Kanye West, her brother-in-law, would be performing at the festival.
The suit was filed in August 2019 by a trustee supervising the fest’s bankruptcy, Gregory Messer.
Messer had stated his intent was to “[recover] money for creditors that lost money investing in the festival.”
Jenner was not the only famous person being sued, as Emily Ratajkowski, Migos, Pusha-T, and Lil Yachty have also found themselves being named in similar suits over their promotion of the fest on social media.
Elle points out that Fyre, the documentary on the festival put out last year by Netflix, contained info that Jenner’s named was illegally used by organizers for the purpose of selling tickets during the fest. Those organizers had made the apparent claim that Jenner would be the host of a yacht party, with tickets costing $10,000 per person.
Last year, Jenner talked about her involvement, and also claimed that she was unaware of what a trainwreck scam it would turn out to be.
“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 to The New York Times. “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. You never really know what’s going to happen.”
As you may remember if you watched either the Hulu or Netflix documentaries last year, the festival was founded by Billy McFarland, who is now serving a six-year prison sentence.
McFarland had raised $26 million for the event, and reportedly used a lot of that money to pay acts that failed to show, and also for celebrities to promote the fest (see: what this article you just read is all about). In March 2018, he pleaded guilty to charges of fraud. In addition to his time spent incarcerated, his punishment also includes an order to pay back restitution for that $26 million he raised.
For those creditors, well, it could be a pretty long wait.
