Ja Rule is facing serious debt. The rapper, who organized the Fyre Festival, is facing a $3 million lawsuit. In addition, he is also being sued by many people who were supposed to attend the festival as well.
Fyre Festival was advertised as a luxury concert in the Bahamas. It was promoted by the likes of model Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid. However, the festival soon spiraled into disaster.
New lawsuit
A new Manhattan lawsuit holds Ja Rule personally responsible for a $3 million loan, which is related to the failed Fyre Festival. The party suing the hip-hop artist is a New York-based firm, EHL Funding LLC, which loaned the money to the rapper and other organizers of the festival.
The loan was personally signed by Ja Rule, which guarantees that it will be paid back in case of a default.
While the rapper, whose real name is Jeffrey Atkins, has paid back some $1 million, the rest of the money hasn't been paid back. In fact, Atkins and his associates stopped making payments after April 21, according to the lawsuit. Court papers show that the full repayment is due by May 31, and it remains to be seen whether Ja Rule will be able to pay back the money by then. This is the seventh lawsuit in a row for the Fyre Festival organizers. According to Page Six, three people who decided to sue the organizers claim that they "deliberately and fraudulently marketed and sold tickets to a lavish, tropical destination music festival.
Instead, plaintiffs endured a horrific experience on an island in the Bahamas not suited nor prepared for an influx of visitors or a music festival of such grand proportion." Another lawsuit came from celebrity attorney Mark Geragos, whose suit claims that Ja Rule and other organizers created the festival as a "get-rich-quick scam from the very beginning."
Millions spent on promotion
Page Six reports that the co-founder of the failed festival, Billy McFarland, spent millions of dollars on promotion.
This included models, private jets, and yachts. Kendall Jenner alone received a payment of $250,000 for starring in a promotional video. Models Emily Ratajkowski, Hailey Baldwin, and Alessandra Ambrosio also starred in videos for Fyre. In the end, McFarland was left with no money to pay vendors or artists, who started pulling out a month before the festival was scheduled. While many claim that Fyre was only a scam, Ja Rule is adamant that the organizers did not attempt fraud.
