It’s been two years, we’ve seen one jail sentence and two documentaries made about the Fyre Festival and there is no end in sight to the news generated by the notorious event. Now those documentaries themselves have been drawn into the vortex of corruption and fraud that brought down the Fyre Festival and its founder, Billy McFarland.
The documentaries – Fyre Fraud, released by Hulu, and FYRE, released by Netflix – are the target of the court-appointed Chapter 7 trustee overseeing what’s left of the assets and estate of the Fyre Festival.
The trustee, Gregory Messer, issued a request for subpoenas against Netflix and Hulu in a legal filing submitted to the court on Tuesday, according to the Wall Street Journal. Messer is demanding answers as to whether Hulu and Netflix properly paid for footage used in the documentaries that is owned by the estate:
Mirroring the trajectory of their subject, the two documentaries about Fyre Festival’s demise have been entangled in conflicts with the individuals involved in the festival. Netflix’s documentary, FYRE, was co-produced by Jerry Media, the marketing agency which was one of the cogs behind the festival’s flashy but ultimately corrupt hype machine (which Hulu’s Fyre Fraud was at pains to mention). But then Hulu’s Fyre Fraud paid Billy McFarland directly for his participation in their film.
McFarland for his part is currently serving a six year sentence at FCI Otisville prison in New York State as a result of his conviction for fraud and other charges related to the collapse of Fyre Festival. McFarland, Federal Inmate 91186-054 has a projected release date of September 1, 2023.
