Two years after the Fyre Festival disaster took over Twitter, Ja Rule addressed the scandal in a Breakfast Club interview. The festival defrauded attendees, investors, and left his co-founder, Billy McFarland, serving a six-year prison sentence. However, Ja Rule continues to distance himself from any wrongdoing in the Festival, claiming “it was false advertising, not fraud.”
Ja Rule addressed the Fyre Festival scandal
Ja Rule and Irv Gotti joined Power 105.1 The Breakfast Club to promote reality television show Growing Up Hip-Hop and the upcoming season of drama series Tales. Of course, the hosts also asked Ja Rule about his part in the disastrous Fyre Festival. After the Hulu and Netflix documentaries premiered in January 2019, Ja Rule defended himself on Twitter claiming people do not know the real story and that he would never scam anyone.
Ja Rule says he had an “amazing idea,” but it was not organized or properly executed. He explained that he thought the festival attendees knew what kind of tents they were sleeping in because his staff told him they sent out emails notifying them. Therefore, he thought everything would be fine and was in Chicago at the time.
Ja Rule says the Fyre Festival was not fraud because they intended on putting on a festival. He admits it was false advertisement because concert-goers initially thought the sleeping arrangements would be different. Ja Rule also addressed Billy McFarland’s comment about “selling a pipe dream to losers,” explaining people thought they would be close with the models which they knew wouldn’t happen. He said once again it was false advertisement, but not a scam.
Did Ja Rule watch the Fyre Festival documentaries?
Ja Rule says he did not watch the documentaries but knows $20 million went towards the festival. He says some people involved must have stolen money, but he’s getting blamed because he’s “the face” of the Fyre Festival.
Ja Rule also does not believe the scamming came from his crew, but possibly the Bahamians. When referring to MaryAnn Rolle, the Bahamian restaurant owner featured in the Netflix documentary who lost $50,000 in the Fyre scandal, Ja Rule says one of the Bahamian workers must have pocketed the cash.
Ja Rule also says he does not talk to McFarland and doesn’t intend on speaking to him. He believes McFarland lied to him and got “way in over his head, so he did what he had to do.”
Will Ja Rule attempt another music festival?
Ja Rule mentions he will put on another music festival because he “has the dopest ideas” and “wants to do it the right way.” Ja Rule says the best thing that came out of the Fyre failure are businessmen that now want to work with Ja Rule because they see his ideas.
Fyre is an app that allows promoters to book artists without any middlemen. The music festival initially began as a way to promote the app. However, Ja Rule has now rebranded the app as ICONN and says people use it all around the world.
Ja Rule distanced himself from the festival several times, brushing the disaster off as a misunderstanding and still a good concept. He then shifted the conversation to Rolling Loud, a hip hop music festival in Miami, where several shootings occurred, and a few rappers were arrested. He claims Fyre Festival was only a big deal and got two documentaries because it was about “white people not getting what they paid for,” however when it came to the Rolling Loud incidents, no one cared.
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