Kendall Jenner will pay out a $90,000 settlement after being sued for her 2017 Instagram post advertising the infamous Fyre Festival.
A string of lawsuits was filed against Jenner and other celebrities who promoted the festival by a bankruptcy trustee who is recovering money for its investors.
Jenner, 24, has denied any liability related to the lawsuit but a settlement was reached after mediation with trustee Gregory Messer late last year.
According to documents filed on Tuesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, the model, who has 129 million Instagram followers, was paid $250,000 for her post that promoted the controversial failed event.
Kendall Jenner, 24, was sued for her Instagram post promoting Fyre Festival, the disastrous 2017 event that was the subject of both a Hulu and Netflix documentary. A settlement for $90k was filed in a Manhattan court on Tuesday but she has denied any liability related to the lawsuit. It was filed by a bankruptcy trustee recovering money for the festival investors
Kendall Jenner is to hand over a $90k settlement after being sued for this Instagram post promoting the controversial Fyre Festival. She was paid $275k for the now-deleted 2017 post
She was later paid a further $25,000 by Fyre Media Inc., the company of festival founder Billy McFarland, for the now-deleted post.
The lawsuit accused Jenner of having shown a ‘clear lack of good faith’ in the festival because she failed to show she was remunerated for her Instagram post.
It said she also neglected to ‘inform their fans and followers that they ultimately decided not to attend the Festival because of problems with the Festival of which they and their agencies were uniquely aware’.
Worlds apart: The luxury accommodations promised to Fyre Festival wound up being hastily constructed tents not the tranquil event advertised in Jenner’s Instagram post
Emily Ratajkowski, Blink-182 and Migos were among the other models and musicians sued in the series of lawsuits filed in August 2019.
They are aimed at retrieving as much money as possible for investors of the disastrous Fyre Festival, which had been marketed as a luxury music festival in The Bahamas.
Founder McFarland is said to have raised $26million that was invested into a viral social media campaign.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the trustee is seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars which were paid to the various musical acts and models who were scheduled to appear during the April 2017 festival.
Intended headline act, Blink-182, is being sued for the return of $500,000.
Model Emily Ratajowski was named in lawsuits filed in August 2019 by the Fyre Festival trustee, who is seeking the return of the money they were paid to promote the festival
The trustee also filed lawsuits asking for the return of money paid to performers, including Blink-182 (drummer Travis Barker pictured left) and Migos (member Offset pictured right)
Jenner was initially being asked to give back the $275,000 she received before Tuesday’s settlement was announced.
Ratajkowski, meanwhile, is being pursued for the $300,000 she received for her Instagram post.
Multiple lawsuits were also filed against the talent agencies who represent other music acts who were scheduled to appear at the festival, according to Variety.
They were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, which were then supposedly distributed to the artists who were set to appear on stage.
The lawsuits claim that the money transferred to the music acts and celebrities should be returned because the funds were all part of Fyre Festival organizer McFarland’s plan to defraud festival investors.
McFarland pleaded guilty to wire fraud charges in March 2018 and is currently serving six years in jail.
Rapper Ja Rule (left) and Fyre Festival founder McFarland (right) are seen here in a behind-the-scenes picture from the Netflix documentary, Fyre. They promoted the festival but it quickly became a disaster and was the subject of two documentaries on Hulu and Netflix
The festival was actually a disaster as festival-goers discovered once they arrived at the island
He has also been ordered by the court to repay more than $26 million in restitution.
The festival was set to take place over two weekends on an island in the Bahamas and was touted as ‘the cultural experience of the decade’.
The Fyre Festival was promoted by McFarland and rapper Ja Rule but went disastrously wrong as the island itself didn’t have the infrastructure to support the partygoers, who were stranded with nowhere to sleep and barely anything to eat.
The buzz around the festival fell apart immediately when attendees showed up and started posting photos on Twitter of bad food and unfinished festival grounds.
It was the subject of two documentaries on Hulu and Netflix, which premiered in January 2019.
Jenner was sued for her part in the slick advertising campaign which caused the festival to become an instant viral hit before it began.
She has previously said that she learned from the Fyre Festival experience.
‘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, sometimes it’s a risk,’ she told the New York Times.
‘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.’