Billy McFarland‘s hustle never stops.
The 27-year-old Fyre CEO and founder reported to jail in October to serve a six-year sentence after pleading guilty to wire fraud charges in connection with the failed Fyre Festival that took place in April 2017. Now the New Jersey native wants to reconnect to some of the other people he wronged in the process of trying to put on the “cultural experience of the decade,” like events producer Andy King, best known for the lengths he was willing to go to make sure the festival took place successfully.
“He reached out last week from jail,” King told Andy Cohen on Wednesday on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy. “His girlfriend wants to take me up to see him.”
Hulu’s Fyre Fraud documentary revealed that McFarland started dating Russian model Anastasia Eremenko after Fyre Festival fell apart, which is also when he continued to scam people — including former festival attendees — with his NYC VIP Access business. McFarland’s latest scheme involved trying to sell tickets he didn’t have to in-demand events like the Met Gala, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show and the Grammys.
Whether King, who previously worked with McFarland on his Magnises credit card venture, will visit his former colleague in jail in Orange County, New York, remains to be seen.
“I have mixed emotions,” King continued to Cohen. “I need to work it through in my mind. I see the best in everybody. That’s who I am and that’s why the world is embracing me, but that can get you into trouble every once and a while, i.e. Fyre.”
King also admits that the documentaries about Fyre — Hulu’s film and Netflix’s Fyre, in which King is interviewed — gave him pause about McFarland.
“It’s mind-boggling when I watched the documentary — it was, first of all, the PTSD was enough to kill me,” he said. “And then, secondly, to see him launching into another scam broke my heart.”
In November, McFarland offered an apology from jail.
“I am incredibly sorry for my collective actions and will right the wrongs I have delivered to my family, friends, partners, associates and, you, the general public,” he told PEOPLE in an exclusive statement.
“I’ve always sought — and dreamed — to accomplish incredible things by pushing the envelope to deliver for a common good, but I made many wrong and immature decisions along the way and I caused agony. As a result, I’ve lived every day in prison with pain, and I will continue to do so until I am able to make up for some of this harm through work and actions that society finds respectable.”
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