Kendall Jenner May Be Forced To Testify About $250,000 Payment From Defunct Fyre Festival For Instagram Post
Top supermodels Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and Emily Rajatkowski may be forced to reveal under oath what happened to the money they received in connection with the ill-fated Fyre Festival, according to a report by the music industry trade publication Billboard.
As previously reported by the Inquisitr, entrepreneur Billy McFarland oversaw the organization of the Fyre Festival, a supposedly high-end music festival to take place in the Bahamas in 2017 that collapsed in a flurry of scandal and financial improprieties. The event has since become the subject of competing documentaries on the streaming services Netflix and Hulu.
According to the Netflix Fyre Festival exposé, McFarland paid Jenner a startling $250,000 to make one Instagram post promoting the Fyre Festival, and within 48 hours of Jenner’s post, 95 percent of the festival’s high-priced tickets were sold, Variety reported.
Now an attorney overseeing the Fyre bankruptcy wants to know if the $250,000 ever reached Jenner, and if so, what happened to the cash, per Billboard. The lawyer, Gregory Messer, plans to slap the supermodel and member of the Kardashian clan with a subpoena to legally compel her testimony.
When Jenner posted the since-deleted Instagram message, she did not indicate that she had been paid to promote the Fyre Festival, which drew her a warning from the Federal Trade Commission for violating rules on disclosing financial compensation for endorsements of products and services.
McFarland raised about $26 million from investors, according to the Daily Mail — money that has largely disappeared without a full accounting. McFarland is currently serving a six-year prison term after being convicted of defrauding his investors and ticket buyers, as well as for a separate scam following the Fyre Festival’s collapse in which he sold about $100,000 worth of phony tickets to high-prestige events such as the annual Met Gala and Grammy Awards.
As noted by Billboard, Messer asked a judge on Friday for a new round of subpoenas for multiple organizations and individuals, including Jenner, Hadid, and Ratajkowski, who all reportedly received some of the $11.3 million paid out by McFarland in the run-up to the festival that never actually happened. The models, as well as models Hailey Baldwin, Elsa Hosk, and others were paid to appear in a flashy promotional video that served as the festival’s primary promotional tool.
Rappers Soulja Boy and Waka Flocka Flame received six-figure payments from McFarland, and will also likely be forced to answer questions about the money under oath, according to Alternative Press.
