NetflixFyre Festival was the party of a lifetime – until it wasn’t. Thousands of people flew out to the Bahamas in 2017, expecting VIP treatment and headlining acts, only to arrive at a dump site.
In the year and a half since, the festival has been reduced to nothing more than a meme. Co-founders Billy McFarland and Ja Rule have received most of the backlash – not forgetting Andy King, the man who was quite literally prepared to ‘suck dick’ to make Fyre work.
So it would probably be fair to assume that those involved in the organisation of the failed festival would want to push it as far out of their minds as possible, right.
Wrong. Because rapper Ja Rule, real name Jeffrey Bruce Atkins, has spoke out about plans to create yet another music festival – as though the first attempt wasn’t enough to put him off for life.
Speaking to TMZ, the rapper addressed the criticisms surrounding the 2017 festival, saying he isn’t ‘ashamed’ of it and even wants to start working on another ‘iconic’ festival.
He said:
It’s not funny to me man, it’s heartbreaking. It was something that I really wanted to be special and amazing… and it just didn’t turn out that way.
Ja Rule previously told Drink Champs:
I’m not ashamed of Fyre at all. Because man, the idea, it was brilliant. It was fucking beyond brilliant… It was amazing, but it wasn’t what I dreamed it of being, and what I envisioned of it being, and what I wanted it to be. It wasn’t done properly.
The festival was intended to be a ‘VIP experience’ on a private island in the Bahamas, with guests promised private jets, white-sand beaches and gourmet food. Instead, they arrived to find an unorganised dump site and were given cheese sandwiches on arrival. Contracted staff were left thousands of dollars out of pocket.
Despite this though, Ja Rule is convinced that another opportunity can come from this disastrous event and is already working on plans for another festival – despite the first getting cancelled.
The rapper told TMZ:
In the midst of chaos is opportunity, I’m working on a lot of new things. I have plans to create the ICONNic music festival.
This was in reference to his new app, ICONN, which is described as ‘a celebrity entertainment booking & concierge service’ on its website.
Anyone else getting serious déjà vu vibes here? This all sounds suspiciously similar to how Fyre was described – that is, until the festival failed spectacularly and the app was taken down.
I’m intrigued to see how this new festival gets received, if it even takes off in the first place. Maybe we’ll have a couple more documentaries exploring its downfall in a few years.
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).