Ja Rule is hoping to stage another Fyre Festival even though the event’s debut was a massive disaster.
The rapper, who teamed with entrepreneur Billy McFarland to present the doomed music festival in the Bahamas, tells TMZ he is planning to make the next one “iconic”.
“In the midst of chaos, there’s opportunity,” he says. “It is the most iconic festival that never was. I have plans to create the iconic festival, but you didn’t hear that from me.”
Fyre Festival has been dubbed the scam of the century after bosses charged attendees between $5,000 (£3,900) and $250,000 (£194,400) for a ticket to see acts like Major Lazer, Tyga, Pusha T, and Desiigner while living it up in paradise. When revellers arrived on Great Exuma in April, 2017, they were greeted with cheese sandwiches, wet tents and basic accommodation – and the event was quickly cancelled.
McFarland was sentenced to serve six years in prison for fraud in October (18), and he is currently serving time behind bars. He and Ja Rule, real name Jeffrey Atkins, have also been hit with a string of civil lawsuits. The 42-year-old rapper has asked to be dismissed as a defendant in all those cases.
Despite the criminal charges, Ja Rule insists he’s still proud of his vision for the event.
“I’m not ashamed of Fyre at all, because man, the idea, it was brilliant,” he adds. “It was fucking beyond brilliant. It was amazing, but it wasn’t what I dreamed it of being (sic) and what I envisioned of it being and what I wanted it to be. It wasn’t done properly.”
The festival disaster received extra attention earlier this year when the films Fyre Fraud and Fyre debuted on streaming services Hulu and Netflix, detailing the events that led to the drama.
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