Billy McFarland Finally Apologizes For His Role In Disastrous Fyre Festival
Much like the Fyre Festival itself — an event so catastrophically disastrous it inspired not one, but two separate documentaries on Netflix and Hulu — festival organizer Billy McFarland's moment in the sun was brief and immediately followed by a humiliating public downfall. McFarland pleaded guilty to charges of fraud related to the Fyre Festival in March 2018, according to NPR. He later pleaded guilty to charges of running another scam operation while he was on pretrial release. The judge ended up sentencing him to six years in prison and ordered to pay more than $26 million in restitution.
In the end, McFarland only served about five years of that sentence, according to Rolling Stone, and was released in May of this year to a halfway house. The public hasn't heard much from the convicted fraudster — on account of his being in prison and all — but he is apparently now ready to tell his story after (hopefully) learning a few lessons.
Billy McFarland acknowledges that he messed up
In his first post-prison interview, Billy McFarland finally apologized for the Fyre Festival disaster on "Good Morning America." "I need to apologize. And that is the first and the last thing that needs to be done. I let people down," he said. He poignantly reflected, "How do I call them now and look them in the eye when I let them down? I just really should've canceled everything and stopped lying."
By way of explanation for his actions, McFarland said it sort of came down to a pride issue. "I was wrong. And I was so driven by this desperate desire to prove people right ... I think I was just so insecure that I thought the only way to prove myself to them was to succeed. That led me down just this terrible path of bad decisions."
As for what he'll do with the rest of his life, in addition to paying back all of the people he reportedly owes money, McFarland told The New York Times that he's considering a new career in tech. "Tech is more open. And the way I failed is totally wrong, but in a certain sense, failure is OK in entrepreneurship," he said.