CONFIDENTIAL:
THE HILARIOUS COLLAPSE of the Fyre Festival comes as no surprise to New Yorkers who’ve attended VIP events hosted by the “organizers” behind last weekend’s bummer in the Bahamas. What was supposed to have been a lavish weeklong bash for rich millennials ended with a Day One cancellation and a $100 million lawsuit against rapper Ja Rule and 25-year-old Billy McFarland (photo), whose Magnises credit card company and lifestyle brand has a long history of screwups. In August 2013, Magnises launched with a private bash welcoming invitees to its brand-new Magnises Penthouse & Roof Garden in SoHo. That chaotic affair ended in a makeshift bar being destroyed in a multiperson brawl. At least one person at the event said she reached out to organizers the next day canceling her membership on the grounds she’d feel unsafe returning to their events.
A few months later, rapper Wale showed up to perform at the clubhouse before appearing on “Saturday Night Live” that evening. That too was a mess.
“It couldn’t have been more than 10 minutes,” said one partygoer who was in the clubhouse for Wale’s performance. “The mic didn’t work for the first couple.”
The clubhouse later relocated to the West Village, which ended with the building’s landlord reportedly suing McFarland for trashing the joint.
The Magnises team was at it again in March 2014 when they threw a party at the Lower East Side’s Hotel Rivington that resulted in embarrassment. Having packed the place with young banker types who’d come to see rapper French Montana perform, the Magnises geniuses decided to make their way into a foreclosed building across the street to hang their company banner for all to see. It wasn’t until they returned to the Hotel Rivington’s rooftop that they noticed the banner had been hanged upside-down. On Monday, press-savvy attorney Mark Geragos filed a $100 million class action lawsuit against Ja Rule and McFarland, charging them with negligence. The Fyre Festival, which was to have ended May 7, was canceled last weekend amid horrendous conditions on the Bahamian island where it was to have taken place.