Fyre Festival Fraudster Billy McFarland Gets Candid About Lying to Investors: ‘Totally the Most F*cked Up Part’

Billy McFarland, the creator of the defunct Fyre Festival, got candid about defrauding millions for the event from investors in a new interview.

On last Thursday’s edition of the Full Send Podcast, McFarland, who was released from prison earlier this year, talked about the infamous Bahamas retreat.

Back in 2017, McFarland scammed investors out of $26 million dollars under the guise of creating a once in a lifetime festival experience on a private island in the Bahamas. The festival was designed to take place over two weekends, house attendees in luxury villas, provide the best food, surround concert goers with models, and hear some of the most popular bands.

There was just one issue: By the time festival goers arrived to the island, almost none of the infrastructure was in place and the entire festival had to be canceled — leaving thousands stranded on the island without accommodations.

After serving just four years of his six year sentence, McFarland is out and ready to make a change.

Speaking with Full Send, McFarland, who made his early career in website design said, “I was 24 and I knew how to build websites. So it’s like, 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.”

“Yeah. Cause involving people obviously makes it a much different situation,” co-host Bradley Martyn said.

“I didn’t know how to like, extrapolate like, okay, a website, the user can’t log in, no one’s hurt. Whereas like, ‘Hey, now I’m trying to house thousands of people in the middle of nowhere for three or four days.’ It’s different,” McFarland added.

When asked what he considered to be the biggest issue with the failure of the festival, McFarland had a simple explanation.

“So we’ll get into it, but like, I’ve certainly, like, I lied to investors to get money and like morally, ethically as a human, like totally the most fucked up part. But the worst like business decision was time,” McFarland said.

McFarland elaborated that the entire festival was thrown together in four months, after a viral trailer for the event took off online.

“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?” Martyn asked.

“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. 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,” McFarland said.

Watch above via the Full Send Podcast.