Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, Hailey Baldwin and Others to Be Subpoenaed Over Fyre Festival Payments

There's an investigation into what happened to money raised by the festival's founder Billy McFarland

By Lena Grossman Jan 29, 2019 1:23 AMTags
Hailey Baldwin, Bella Hadid, Kendall JennerJP Yim/Getty Images; Victor VIRGILE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images; Isaac Brekken/Getty Images for FIJI Water

The disaster that was Fyre Festival continues to go down in flames.

Agencies that represent Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, Hailey Baldwin, Elsa Hosk and other models will be subpoenaed as part of Fyre's bankruptcy filing, according to court documents obtained by E! News. Fyre Festival's bankruptcy trustee Gregory Messer filed an ex-parte order in bankruptcy court to examine a number of agencies and it was approved on Monday.

There's currently an investigation underway to uncover what happened to $26 million that Fyre Festival's founder Billy McFarland raised by investors. According to Billboard, Messer is looking into $5.3 million in payments in this latest subpoena. The grand total of payments being investigated thus far from the number of orders equals $11.3 million.

According to the court filing, Messer is now turning to IMG Models, DNA Model Management and Kendall Jenner Inc. for some answers about McFarland's payments to their agencies in relation to their appearance in the festival's promotional video. IMG represents Baldwin, Hosk and Hadid while DNA has Emily RatajkowskiBillboard says McFarland paid IMG $1.2 million over a span of four months spanning from November 2016 until February 2017. 

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In January 2017, the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star apparently received $250,000 for her role in promotion Fyre Festival. Similarly, DNA Model Management got $299,000 in March 2017.

Lee/Prahl/ Splash News

Daily Mail reports that Jenner promoted Fyre on Instagram beforehand and said in a now-deleted post that her "G.O.O.D. Music Family" would be headlining the show. Kanye West founded the G.O.O.D. Music record label in 2004. At the time, Jenner received a warning from the Federal Trade Commission because she did not make clear that it was an ad and sponsored post.

According to Billboard, other big names Messer wants to subpoena include Soulja Boy, who was paid $115,000 in August 2016 and Waka Flocka Flame, who received $150,000.

Daily Mail reports CAA and ICM Partners received $250,000 each as payments for talent. CAA represents Blink 182 and ICM has Lil Yachty, Migos and Rae Sremmurd.

Messer also requested to subpoena 16 different companies that were involved in travel, staging and food and beverage arrangements. The total of those payments for the 16 companies adds up to $4.7 million.

Fyre has recently come back into the mainstream recently thanks to dueling documentaries from Netflix Hulu about the disastrous weekend, which was even nicknamed the "Millennial Armageddon." Some people likened it to a "refugee camp." McFarland and the festival's co-producer Ja Rule were hit with a $100 million class action lawsuit in May 2017 and then a second one just a day later.

On June 30, 2017, McFarland was arrested and charged with wire fraud. In October 2018, he was sentenced to 6 years in prison.

Ja Rule recently defended himself and his role in Fyre and claimed on Twitter that he was "hustled, scammed, bamboozled, hood winked, lead astray" by McFarland.

He wrote in another tweet, "I did not and would never scam ANYONE... period!!!"