The infamous Fyre Festival led to tons of backlash for those involved in the luxury musical event, and Ja Rule was no exception. Despite the fallout, however, the rapper maintains he will put it on again, albeit under a different moniker.
Ja said on “The Breakfast Club” Wednesday morning that the festival, which promised to be an exclusive two-weekend event on the island of Great Exuma in the Bahamas with high-priced VIP packages, was simply “f—ing done wrong!”
The 2017 event, which Ja co-founded with entrepreneur Billy McFarland, failed to deliver on promises of catered meals and deluxe sleeping accommodations. Instead, attendees arrived and slept in disaster relief tents and were served meals of bread and cheese. Performers including Major Lazer, Lil Yachty and Blink-182, which canceled their headlining appearance, failed to ever hit the stage.
“Here’s the real s—,” he said. “The Fyre Festival was an amazing idea. Let’s not act like every f—ing body wasn’t coming to the Fyre Festival. It was f—ing done wrong. It was organized bad. The idea of it was dope, the marketing was dope, everything was done very right on that end. The execution was extremely bad, man.”
He went on to explain his biggest issue was the tents and said he was told emails were issued to attendees informing them about their sleeping accommodations. He denied doing anything fraudulent in connection with the event.
“Hold the f–k up,” he says. “Because what I was told is emails was sent out to everybody, so it’s not fraud. Maybe false advertising. But not fraud. … I wanted to do an amazing f–king festival and I believe Billy did too.”
McFarland is currently serving a six-year stint in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud when a probe found he defrauded investors in his company, Fyre Media, along with a subsidiary that promoted the festival. As a result, $24 million was lost. He also pleaded guilty to two other counts of fraud involving another company, The New York Times reported.
Once McFarland is set free, however, Ja won’t be chatting with him.
“I have no conversations with Bill, I don’t intend to have any conversations with Billy,” he says on the radio show. “I’m mad at Billy. He lied to me, man. He lied to me in a lot of ways.”
Meanwhile, it doesn’t seem like folks online are here for the revamped Fyre Festival.
“Hang it up.”
“We’re good.”
“Give it up stop we barely forgot.”
