Paying the price. Kendall Jenner has been ordered to give back some of the money she was paid for endorsing the failed Fyre Festival in 2017.
According to court documents filed on Tuesday, May 19, and obtained by Us Weekly, Jenner will pay $90,000 after posting a promotional Instagram photo (which has been deleted) in January 2017.
The docs revealed that Jenner, 24, was paid $275,000 for her social media endorsement. Jenner was sued in August 2019 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York City by Gregory Messer, who is seeking to recover funds for creditors who lost money investing in the festival.
Fyre Festival was advertised as a luxury event scheduled to take place in April and May 2017 on the Bahamas’ Great Exuma island. The exclusive event, however, did not make good on its promises.
Festivalgoers were expecting gourmet food choices and fancy villas, but upon arrival were faced with sandwiches and dismantled tents. The price to attend cost anywhere between $1,000 to $125,000, but was canceled during the first weekend.
The Keeping Up With the Kardashians star was one of many celebrities who promoted the event, including Bella Hadid, Hailey Baldwin and Emily Ratajkowski. Messer also filed claims against Lil Yachty, Migos and the duo Rae Sremmurd. A settlement notice on May 11, obtained by Us, revealed that the group settled their case for $18,000 after being paid $100,000 by the event organizers.
Jenner previously addressed her involvement in the festival fiasco in March 2019.
“You get reached out to by people to, whether it be to promote or help or whatever, and you never know how these things are going to turn out,” Jenner said in a New York Times interview. “Sometimes it’s a risk.”
The model continued: “I definitely do as much research as I can, but sometimes there isn’t much research you can do because it’s a starting brand and you kind of have to have faith in it and hope it will work out the way people say it will. You never really know what’s going to happen.”
Following the scam, the festival cofounder Billy McFarland pleaded guilty to wire fraud and using fake documents to get $26 million from investors. He was sentenced to six years in federal prison.
Us Weekly previously reported that the canceled event produced eight lawsuits, one of which sought more than $100 million in damages.
The disastrous music experience later became the subject to two popular documentaries: Netflix’s Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened and Hulu’s Fyre Fraud.
With reporting by Marjorie Hernandez
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