Fyre Festival Fraudster Billy McFarland Tells His Side Of The Story On ‘Dumpster Fyre’ Podcast From Prison

Fyre Festival’s organizer, Billy McFarland, sentenced to 26 months in federal prison in Ohio while his business partner Ja Rule distanced himself from the disaster. But now, McFarland hosting a new multi-part podcast series titled Dumpster Fyre, McFarland from prison.

Getty Image / Patrick McMullan/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)


Much like a bad case of chlamydia, the hubbub surrounding Fyre Festival just won’t go away. Billy McFarland, the organizer of the Fyre Festival, was sentenced to six years on fraud charges relating to his failed music festival in The Exumas, Bahamas. With a lot of spare time on his hands in prison and possibly running out of books to check out from the Brooks Hatlen Memorial Library, McFarland is now doing a podcast, because of course he is. Podcasts are so hot right now.

In March 2018, McFarland pleaded guilty to wire fraud charges relating to the Fyre Festival. In October 2018, McFarland was sentenced in Manhattan federal court to six years in prison for one count of wire fraud in connection with a scheme to defraud investors, one count of wire fraud in connection with a scheme to defraud a ticket vendor for the Fyre Festival, one count of wire fraud, in connection with his operation of a sham ticket scheme in which he purported to sell tickets, one count of bank fraud for writing a check with the name and account number of one of his employees without authorization, and one count of making false statements to a federal law enforcement agent. FBI agent John Casale, called McFarland a “serial fraudster,” who defrauded over 100 investors and owes $26 million in restitution.

After 29 months in the Federal Correctional Institution Elkton, a low-security federal prison located in Ohio for male inmates, McFarland is ready to tell his side of the story. McFarland will appear in an upcoming podcast appropriately titled Dumpster Fyre. McFarland doesn’t exactly have the setup for a high-quality podcasting booth in prison, so he will call in to his own podcast. Hopefully, the fellow inmates on the phone with their attorneys will keep their voices down in respect that a podcast is being recorded in the next phone booth over. The host will be Jordan Harbinger, who hosts his own appropriately titled podcast called The Jordan Harbinger Show.

McFarland’s time has allegedly “forced reflection on [his] mistakes and the people [he] hurt.” He also said, “I’m aware of the pain and suffering that I caused. What I did was completely wrong and stupid.”

“I’m not going to hide behind my mistakes; I’m going to share everything that happened,” reportedly McFarland is heard saying. “When I think about the mistakes that were made and what happened, there’s no way that I can describe it but just, ‘What the f*** was I thinking?”

The multi-part podcast series podcast will air on October 20.