Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster | E202

Steven Bartlett 0:00 Were you nervous coming here today? (tense music)

Billy McFarland 0:04 I didn't know how in depth you were gonna go. If I knew the questions, I don't think I would've slept last night.

Steven Bartlett 0:08 Are you a pathological liar? (tense music) Billy McFarland. He is the man behind the infamous Fyre Festival.

Billy McFarland 0:14 Island getaway turned disaster.

Steven Bartlett 0:16 The Fyre Festival is the subject of two documentaries.

Billy McFarland 0:19 I will never forget.

Steven Bartlett 0:21 When did you realize it had all gone wrong? (tense music)

Billy McFarland 0:24 We were at the point where the timeline I had come up with was just so off. I'd wake up some days and it's like, "We need $4 million by 2:00 PM."

Steven Bartlett 0:31 Did no one say to you, "This is fucking craziness"?

Billy McFarland 0:33 I just didn't have the ability to like, okay, like what's actually happening? How can we prevent this? And like almost like as if on cue, a storm rolls in. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 0:42 Billy McFarland pleaded guilty to fraud charges.

Billy McFarland 0:44 Sentenced to six years in prison.

Steven Bartlett 0:46 You come back to a shit storm.

Billy McFarland 0:48 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 0:48 The criminality doesn't stop though, does it?

Billy McFarland 0:50 But I couldn't like really understand the magnitude and the gravity of the crime that I did commit.

Steven Bartlett 0:54 Your lawyers tried to get you off the 20-year prison sentence by saying that you suffered from untreated bipolar disorder. Do you have bipolar disorder?

Billy McFarland 1:02 Um. I did two stints in solitary. The seven-month stint was because I tried to do a podcast over the payphone. They put the paperwork in to send me to like a terrorist facility. When you're rendered useless and powerless, that just kind of kills your humanity. That's fucking scary. That keeps me up at night.

Steven Bartlett 1:21 Andy King. (laughs) Did you ask him to suck a penis?

Billy McFarland 1:25 Here's what actually happened.

Steven Bartlett 1:27 (exhales) Before this episode starts, I have a small favor to ask from you. Two months ago, 74% of people that watch this channel didn't subscribe. We're now down to 69%. My goal is 50%. So if you've ever liked any of the videos we've posted, if you like this channel, can you do me a quick favor and hit the subscribe button? It helps this channel more than you know. And the bigger the channel gets, as you've seen, the bigger the guests get. Thank you and enjoy this episode. (upbeat music)

Steven Bartlett 2:01 Billy, how are you doing?

Billy McFarland 2:05 It's been crazy. Uh, a little less than three and a half months since my sentence ended, and really just been a whirlwind of finding the right people, finding the right opportunities, and really just dealing with this overhang of probation and the constant fear that there's someone out there who could send me back at any time by taking a wrong turn. So, trying to avoid paying people back in every sense of that word and emotion while dealing with this fear that I can wake up one morning to a phone call saying, "Ha," like, "Joke's over. You're going back."

Steven Bartlett 2:42 So take me back. Um, one of the things I'm so curious about everybody that I sit here and talk to is their earliest context and their earliest upbringing and how that's like ultimately shaped who they are today.

Billy McFarland 2:54 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 2:54 So take me way, way back to New Jersey when you were, you know, under the age of 10.

Billy McFarland 2:58 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 2:58 What was that, what was your context, your parents, the situation in which you grew up?

Billy McFarland 3:03 Yeah, I grew up in a pretty normal suburban American household, and I think the defining moment was when I was 10 years old where I got a cable internet line into my house, and this is the really early days of the internet, and it was pretty much like the Wild, Wild West era where a lot of like the framework and regulation and mature social platforms that we have now just didn't exist then. We were in the infancy of like HTML and CSS and the practicality and accessibility of some 10-year-old putting a website online, and I really found the internet to be this outlet where I could push the boundaries of everything that I thought was possible as this young suburban child, and really as a way to start getting in trouble and seeing what it was like to get in trouble and see where I could go.

Steven Bartlett 3:53 Talk to me about your parents. I've not heard, um, much about them in your interviews, but I'd love to know the influence they had on you and how that shaped you.

Billy McFarland 4:00 I think they were great. You know, super loving, super supportive, and I, I think I've been asked this question, you know, so many times, but whether it's like the jail therapist, like, or the probation department, and I think it's interesting that, you, you know, there isn't like a defining moment I think that kind of set me down like the entrepreneurial journey. Um, I think I was just like really weird in this desire to make my own path and to really test what was possible. And so, I was always kind of looking for journeys to start businesses and really like test the bounds of, you know, of reality and of the constraints placed on me at various times in life. And obviously, like the constraints of a 10-year-old are, are much different than they were when I was 24 in the midst of the Fyre Festival and much different at 27 in solitary confinement. But I think the reoccurring theme was trying to find ways to test those restraints, and that took me to the very best times, but also the very worst times in doing four years in prison and, you know, owing the world, whether that's time, money, friendship, an apology. Uh, so yeah. It's been, it's been quite the journey.

Steven Bartlett 5:07 My question still becomes like why though? So testing the restraints of like what was possible-

Billy McFarland 5:11 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 5:12 ... why does a kid want to do that? Like, what was it about, about you when you were that age in your childhood or the circumstances you found yourself in or, you know, what behavior was being reinforced and what behavior was being punished that made you go off on that journey? You, you referenced a, a, a sort of a jailhouse therapist.

Billy McFarland 5:27 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 5:27 And them probably asking you these kind of questions as well.

Billy McFarland 5:29 Yeah, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 5:30 Did you learn anything about yourself from that, those conversations?

Billy McFarland 5:33 Totally, and I, I think there has always been this desire to prove that I was different, and I don't think I really understood like what different meant. I don't think it meant trying to be like the smartest or the most interesting. It was like trying to prove that I could create my own path, and I think that's always-

Steven Bartlett 5:52 Why?

Billy McFarland 5:52 ... been the desire.

Steven Bartlett 5:53 Why did you want to create your own path and prove that? I hear this word proving a lot throughout your story.

Billy McFarland 5:58 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 5:58 Like a desire to prove yourself right and prove yourself to others. It comes up over and over again in the conversations you've had. Where did that desire to prove yourself come from?

Billy McFarland 6:07 I think, uh, yeah, yeah, I remember back to like getting a, an AlphaSmart in, you know, early grammar school and I was so desperate to like hack the teacher's like admin password for the AlphaSmart to change the settings on it and just wanted to show or, I think I was really proving to myself that I could do something different and... I never really did well in terms of like a structured, like learning environment. I was always either like super disinterested or very, very passionate about something, whether it's technology or computers, the internet, and just like wanting to dive in and just like almost testing against myself what, what was possible and what wasn't possible.

Steven Bartlett 6:44 Did, did those around you, like teachers and your parents have high hopes for you in your opinion?

Billy McFarland 6:49 I think so, but they were also, you know, I don't wanna s- I don't like the word like realistic, but I think they were very like realistic and structured hopes and my path was certainly frowned upon by teachers, you know, friends, uh, et cetera, throughout the years.

Steven Bartlett 7:04 Even when you were younger people-

Billy McFarland 7:06 Even when I was younger, yeah. I think like teachers were always concerned that like, "Why is he starting a business and not focusing on his, you know, math tests?" So it was, it was, it was a problem since a, a young age.

Steven Bartlett 7:16 Do you remember getting sort of like critical or pessimistic feedback at a young age about your ambitions and what was possible for you?

Billy McFarland 7:23 Yeah, absolutely. And-

Steven Bartlett 7:24 Can you give me some examples?

Billy McFarland 7:25 Yeah. So it's like, uh, I had started a social network a couple of years later when I was 12 years old, and this is early days of MySpace before Facebook had really gone outside of like Harvard and the initial Ivy League schools. I created a private social network for my middle school and like out of nowhere, like the site blew up and you know, it was like the talk in middle school for a few days and the teachers basically called me in and said like, "The internet is not safe." You know, "You have to stop this right now. You have to get rid of the website."

Steven Bartlett 7:53 And how did that make you feel?

Billy McFarland 7:55 It made me feel like I thought I was creating something of value, but I, I felt like that what I viewed as value wasn't, you know, agreed upon by everybody else. It almost created this like reinforcement where like, no, I know this is tangible. I know this is real and I know people like are enjoying something I made and I felt it was just so cool to have, at the time it was hundreds of people, whatever, but having hundreds or a couple of thousand people using something I made as a 12-year-old was just really, really interesting to me and I think it kind of created this deeper desel- shell and like desire to prove whether it was to those teachers or to the friends who like weren't supportive that there is a different way than, you know, the way that we're all taught.

Steven Bartlett 8:34 What did your parents want you to be? You know, like I think my mom wanted me to be... I actually remember.

Billy McFarland 8:38 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 8:38 My mom's from, from Nigeria. She didn't get an education-

Billy McFarland 8:40 Oh.

Steven Bartlett 8:41 ...like, uh, we do. I was born in Botswana in Africa as well and my mom, I think wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer.

Billy McFarland 8:47 Okay.

Steven Bartlett 8:47 I think she was set actually on doctor. What did your parents want you to be in your own opinion?

Billy McFarland 8:52 I don't think they really cared as long as I followed the traditional path of like super studying hard in school, doing well, going to a good college, having a good college experience. I think beyond that, um, they didn't really care too much. I went to school to study computer engineering, didn't last very long. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 9:07 Hmm.

Billy McFarland 9:07 So didn't really, you know, study computer engineering, but that was the, uh, that was the intent.

Steven Bartlett 9:11 What, what, what's the defining difference between both of them? You know, like my mother is X in terms of ha- characteristics, my father is Y.

Billy McFarland 9:18 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 9:18 What, what other... If you had to describe them in a couple of words each, what words would you use?

Billy McFarland 9:22 I think entrepreneurial, uh, you know, quick, like in terms of like, you know, quick minds are sharp, they're smart and like honest. Th- I think like integrity is like the big thing. They're very honest, good people and like that's, you know, has been part of the hardest part to me is them and not just them, it's like other family members and friends trying to understand how I could go down this path where I was just lying and, you know, lying to investors and partners and employees and whatever it may have been, just like understanding how I got there from, you know, the, the path I had taken.

Steven Bartlett 9:56 Have you had that conversation with them?

Billy McFarland 9:57 I have and it, it comes down to I think you've, you've nailed it super early on. It was just this desire and I think more than a desire, probably a need to prove myself and fast-forward many, many years later with like firing the Fyre Festival, that need was to these, these investors who basically took a chance on me when I first dropped out of school and had been backing me for five, six, seven years before the Fyre Festival came to be. Like my life I felt, and it sounds so silly to me now, but my life I felt to me at that time was making them happy and making them money. And obviously like the initial investors, if Fyre didn't work and didn't work honestly, they probably would've been okay (laughs) and they would've been far more understanding than the fact that I ended up lying at the end to get their support, but this like need to prove that I could do it and the ones who did believe in me, the need to prove that they were right to believe in me just really led me down this terrible, terrible path of however long it was where I was lying.

Steven Bartlett 10:56 That need to prove oneself-

Billy McFarland 10:58 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 10:58 ...um, it can, it can garner some fantastic results in life-

Billy McFarland 11:02 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 11:02 ...because you, you end up striving and being ambitious and it acts as a source of motivation, but then it can also, um, 'cause I can relate to it, it can also get ugly at some point when that need overshadows the need to be like ethical or to even have work/life balance, whatever it might be.

Billy McFarland 11:18 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 11:18 Have you ever managed in all the time you've had to reflect on it, have you figured out why you of all people had that, and you used the word need-

Billy McFarland 11:25 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 11:26 Not, not desire. Y- you refer to it as a need to prove yourself. Like where did that come from? Do you, do you know?

Billy McFarland 11:32 I don't know. Um...

Steven Bartlett 11:34 You don't know.

Billy McFarland 11:34 And as I said, I think I've been asked so many times (laughs) by people obviously not as smart as you, but I've been asked by a lot of people and I don't think I've given a good enough answer and that's probably something that I need to think about.

Steven Bartlett 11:45 Because it's dangerous if y- you know, I'm thinking about self-awareness here and if that's still driving you from the back room of your subconscious-

Billy McFarland 11:52 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 11:52 ...um, where that might take you again in the future, right?

Billy McFarland 11:55 Agree and I think it's more about where I can find fulfillment and making people happy because they've made money or investing a success probably is most likely the wrong formula in a lot of different situations and-I think, like, especially prison has made me very, very relationship focused, and I feel a stronger need to be trusted by someone more than to make them happy. And I think that's the furthest area that I've improved in over the past five years.

Steven Bartlett 12:26 I've never heard you talk about the, um, the conversations with your parents in the wake of everything that happened.

Billy McFarland 12:31 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 12:32 And w- what were, what have been those conversations? If I was privy to some of those conversations in person, what would I have seen?

Billy McFarland 12:42 Yeah, I think I've just tried to find a way to apologize and it's been to everybody. It's been to close friends who I think were hurt emotionally as well, other family members, other supporters. And it's just been trying to explain to them, like, why and finding the real words to apologize. And it was just so crazy, as I've had all this time to obviously reflect about it, how I thought I was trying to make people happy but I was really just, like, burning down these relationships and hurting them along the way. And it's just how messed up that pursuit and path really was.

Steven Bartlett 13:18 H- Have you actually apologized to your parents?

Billy McFarland 13:20 Oh, absolutely. Yes.

Steven Bartlett 13:23 And what's their stance been throughout jail and before and even now? How, what's their perspective been?

Billy McFarland 13:31 It's been, like, close family is different because we're, obviously we're in touch and, you know, everybody, uh, uh, family is your family. And I think for, like, childhood friends who I was probably closer with, like, on an emotional level, it's been a little weird when I essentially was on the sideline in a way for four years or whatever the timeframe was. And then during that time, I'm kind of sheltered from, like, the media and the comments and everything. Like, I don't necessarily hear or even see everything that's happening and so, like, the bulk of that is directed towards other people, like, whether it's family or friends.

Steven Bartlett 14:03 Mm-hmm.

Billy McFarland 14:03 So after so long of, like, being the target just because I'm not there to be the target, they start to, like, you know, form different opinions and their minds start to wander. And then I think when I've seen people for the first time, like, since jail, and then I can kinda see, like, a switch flip in their head after, like, four or five minutes, like, "Oh, okay. He's the old Billy that I used to know." And they start, like, acting normal again which is, like, really crazy to me that when I was in jail, I just didn't really understand or appreciate the terrible shit basically that close people to me had to go through just because I wasn't, like, available to be at the receiving end of everything that's happened.

Steven Bartlett 14:41 What did they go through?

Billy McFarland 14:43 I think, like, the, the emotional trauma, right? And people are looking to blame someone and to, you know, throw shade and hate and, uh, deservedly so on someone and if I'm not there, like, (laughs) to be able to take that hate 'cause I'm physically locked away somewhere, people need a target for it. And, you know, unfortunately, I think for a lot of people who, and I learned this in jail too, a lot of people in jail, the ones that take it the hardest are the friends and family just 'cause they're not the one, they're not the reason why you're there but they suffer almost the most from it and it's just, it's not fair.

Steven Bartlett 15:10 Did they tell you that they had been on the receiving end of that, that abuse?

Billy McFarland 15:14 Yeah, and a lot of friends too, you know, from-

Steven Bartlett 15:16 Wha- what were, what kind of abuse, d- did they tell you explicitly what kind of abuse they had been on the receiving end of?

Billy McFarland 15:22 I think it's just, like, the mental and it's, like, emotional anguish. Um, I've had, like, friends even who didn't work with me but, you know, who were super close and around for a lot of the buildup of the events, um, whether it's from, like, their family or their friends or their employers, like, "How could you not know? How could you have been with him?" And people are looking for, uh, I think the public looks for someone to blame and if I wasn't there to receive that blame or wasn't responding to it, that blame, they just look for other targets and, like, I think that's what crushed me the most is on this limited contact with friends or family, whatever from jail, like, hearing the sadness and abuse they were taking and being able to do absolutely nothing about it, just, like, totally powerless.

Steven Bartlett 16:08 Going back into your story, it's, you know, I was reading through all of the sort of entrepreneurial endeavors you, you did as a, as a young man even before the age of, like, 15 years old you had started companies, you had sold companies. Um, just, just this long, long list of continually starting another business. Starting at, like, nine years old you started programming. 13 you start this, um, this, this outsourcing startup which en- uh, eventually gets sold, uh, on an auction site called, um, Your Hot Site, I believe.

Billy McFarland 16:35 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 16:36 And then at 15 years old you create a company called 24Seen which is eventually sold to BuddyTV.

Billy McFarland 16:40 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 16:41 When you were 15 years old.

Billy McFarland 16:42 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 16:43 You go off to, you graduate at 18 from, I guess, high school or something.

Billy McFarland 16:46 High school, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 16:46 Yeah. We call it different things in the UK.

Billy McFarland 16:48 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 16:48 Um, you go off to university and in your freshman year you drop out and start a company called Spling.

Billy McFarland 16:52 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 16:53 And you raise $400,000 in a series A round for this company called Spling at 18 years old, right?

Billy McFarland 16:58 The financing rounds today are a little different. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 17:00 (laughs) Oh, really?

Billy McFarland 17:01 So this is like, this is like 2010 but-

Steven Bartlett 17:02 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Billy McFarland 17:03 ... crazy how the world's changed, right?

Steven Bartlett 17:04 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you-

Billy McFarland 17:05 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 17:05 ... you raised that capital at 18 years old.

Billy McFarland 17:07 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 17:08 Is that your first sort of i- window into the fact or point of awareness where you think, "Fuck, I can raise capital for things that I have ideas for"?

Billy McFarland 17:16 I think the biggest thing there was having someone so much smarter and older and, like, more successful than me actually, like, believe in me and back it up. The idea to, like, any friends and any family that I'm taking time off school or dropping out of school was, like, totally not okay.

Steven Bartlett 17:34 Mm-hmm.

Billy McFarland 17:35 But the fact that I can point to, like, a small group of these early investors who were clearly, like, established and, you know, like, amazing almost like icons in their own fields.

Steven Bartlett 17:46 Mm-hmm.

Billy McFarland 17:47 That was when I was like, look, I have this real group who is supporting me beyond their words and I need to show not just them but I need to show the world that these people are right and everybody else who is saying, like, what I'm doing is wrong is incorrect.

Steven Bartlett 18:01 Who was saying you were wrong at that age, at 18? Who was betting against you?

Billy McFarland 18:04 I think, like, every peer, you know-

Steven Bartlett 18:07 All your friends.

Billy McFarland 18:08 All their friends, all your family members. I think like-

Steven Bartlett 18:09 All your family members?

Billy McFarland 18:11 Not, not all. I think the majority. Um, and I think that the big thing with, like-My friends at that age who, especially like the ones who like did better in school and, you know, probably a little bit smarter, it just really a- as much as like they can't admit it and I know I do this to other people too, so I think I see it, as much as they, they can't do it, like they don't wanna see someone in, obviously we're super young at that age, but succeed beyond them when it's like, "Hey, I'm studying 70 hours a week, you know. I know I'm smarter than he is and I'm working just as hard or harder than him, you know. Why can he go and do this and I can't?" So I think that's kind of like a- a- a mantra that, you know, I've noticed a lot amongst like close friends and obviously I see that same behavior in myself so yeah, I think that- that part just sucks.

Steven Bartlett 18:52 On Spling.

Billy McFarland 18:53 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 18:53 It was an- a- an avenue for you to eventually move to New York.

Billy McFarland 18:56 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 18:56 What happened to that company? Eventually failed?

Billy McFarland 18:59 Yeah, so uh, moved to New York actually in the second ever WeWork space in New York. Uh, this is 2011 I think.

Steven Bartlett 19:06 Mm-hmm.

Billy McFarland 19:06 Yeah, so second ever WeWork space in New York and Spling started as a social network and I was kind of like parlaying off of what I'd built in, you know, middle school and high school and had those really small, you know, websites that ended up selling, which is great. Um, the social networking aspect of Spling never really took off and ended up making software and started to sell it to like these record labels and TV networks, and I was like the suburban kid who was already weird for programming and now I'm the suburban kid who's weird for programming, crazy for dropping out of school, and now I'm sitting in the office with, you know, the heads of these like massive media companies that we've all heard of that like I didn't even know really like existed. Like to go meet with like the boss at Def Jam or Hearst or like Discovery or Disney, like all these companies that were just like a logo on TV for me as a young kid. I was now like tangibly there and they were like paying for something I was building, which is just like a wild experience to go from, you know, being in a dorm room in the middle of nowhere to in the midst of the entertainment world in New York.

Steven Bartlett 20:04 And so at some point you make the decision to close Spling down.

Billy McFarland 20:07 So Spling was going and I just got super distracted by these entertainment companies (laughs) that I was going to and like I kept trying to tell back like these childhood friends, I kept trying to explain to them like what was happening and they didn't really believe me, and that was really the genesis of Magnises was that I wanted to take like the 19-year-old me who wasn't working at Spling and give him access to this world of like entertainment and fashion and like media that I was like finding myself stumbling into in New York.

Steven Bartlett 20:37 And so I- I'm trying to get to the point of like there comes a day where you go... I'm gonna... I've had this in my life. My first startup failed-

Billy McFarland 20:42 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 20:42 ... as well when I was literally 18 and then I left it at 20-

Billy McFarland 20:45 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 20:45 ... and started my next business, but there's a day where you go, "Fuck that. I'm gonna do- do Magnises instead."

Billy McFarland 20:51 So I basically said, "Fuck that. I'm gonna do Magnises but like still keep Spling going." So...

Steven Bartlett 20:55 Okay.

Billy McFarland 20:56 Yeah, so Spling... And that was like my biggest mistake. So Spling kept operating for, you know, a few years with let's say 10 to 15 hours of a week of attention.

Steven Bartlett 21:03 Okay.

Billy McFarland 21:04 Whereas like, you know, the vast majority of my time was focused on Magnises. I think like one of the reoccurring themes is just not seeing things through and like it happened again with Magnises into Fire, but like jumping ship when Spling would not have been as big as Magnises or Fire could have been but it still could have, it still was okay and like I could have had a successful exit for people who were involved and just like not seeing that through was just wrong.

Steven Bartlett 21:28 R- reoccurring theme.

Billy McFarland 21:29 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 21:30 Um, I mean, I see that throughout your childhood and then into early, into your early sort of 20s.

Billy McFarland 21:35 Yep.

Steven Bartlett 21:36 That- that, um, that, I guess ambition and that sort of constant inspiration you have leads you to kind of abandon the last thing.

Billy McFarland 21:44 Yep.

Steven Bartlett 21:44 And- and- and an entrepreneur's currency is their time and attention so, as you've, as you've cited there, it's finite. It means that the old thing gets a fraction of your time when really if it's gonna succeed in that market, it needs more than all of your time.

Billy McFarland 21:56 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 21:57 Um, this leads you on to Magnises-

Billy McFarland 21:59 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 21:59 ... in 2013?

Billy McFarland 22:00 Yeah, 2015.

Steven Bartlett 22:00 You launched in 2014 eventually?

Billy McFarland 22:02 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 22:03 Magnises was a... Tell me, tell me what it was and- and why you chose to switch your attention to this.

Billy McFarland 22:08 Yeah, so Magnises was a network that was seeking to give young people living in major cities access to better benefits, events, and networking than their like credit card would give them. So like literally this is 2012 I just, I started doing the Magnises card before it launched. I went on Alibaba, so this was like ten years ago before Alibaba is Alibaba, bought this like blank black sheet of metal and a credit card copier and literally went and copied my like really crappy debit card with $20 onto it onto this like black metal card and just like went to the pizza parlor across the street and the guy just made a total scene when I went to pay and went and showed the card off around WeWork and started just selling cards to like interesting entrepreneurs at WeWork and that was like literally the genesis of Magnises.

Steven Bartlett 22:57 And the- the core pro- of the proposition was that it was kind of elite and exclusive.

Billy McFarland 23:01 Yeah, so it was definitely trying to cater towards this like upwardly mobile entrepreneur style crowd.

Steven Bartlett 23:09 That feels like a through line across many of your businesses that went on-

Billy McFarland 23:12 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 23:12 ... which was like appealing to people's desire for status and clout.

Billy McFarland 23:19 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 23:19 'Cause when I was reading about Magnises, at the end of the day it felt like it was a- a black metal card which was, again, appealing to people's egos-

Billy McFarland 23:26 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 23:26 ... 'cause everybody wants that American Express Black card but they can't get it because you need to spend, you need to spend like a quarter of a million to get it.

Billy McFarland 23:32 Sure. Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 23:33 So it makes people feel amazing and then you're promising them... The application process was only a few people could apply.

Billy McFarland 23:39 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 23:39 It was all appealing to that, people's desire to be status.

Billy McFarland 23:42 That's what, that's what it started at when I was like 19 or 20, whatever the- the time was and then it ended up growing and the real benefit was the network and there were certain members or cardholders who were meeting other members and kind of giving them value.

Steven Bartlett 23:55 Mm-hmm.

Billy McFarland 23:56 And I think like the first concept of Magnises was one, I wanted the black card for sure, and that was like the fun novelty, like more of the marketing aspect of it but two is I wanted like a vehicle to share and really invite my friends to all these like entertainment properties where I was starting to experience and explore because they didn't believe me so it's almost like show them what I was telling them was actually happening and have an excuse to bring people along through this club or community built around Magnises.

Steven Bartlett 24:23 And you raised capital for Magnises?

Billy McFarland 24:25 We did, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 24:25 1.5 million before you launched and then three point something after?

Billy McFarland 24:28 Yeah, I think that the total was in like the mid- mid-threes.Yep. So nothing crazy like, but ...

Steven Bartlett 24:33 Okay. And, um, Ja Rule comes into the picture sometime around the Magnises?

Billy McFarland 24:37 Yeah. So it started basically like, once again, Magnises was all about one, fulfilling like my fantasies of places I wanted to go and couldn't get to, and then like once I was there, having all of my friends come too. And I just like loved hip hop as a kid. So throughout Magnises, we booked probably close to a dozen and a half or even like 20 rappers to come perform these small concerts for Magnises, and that's what started the whole ball rolling towards like the Fire app and that concept.

Steven Bartlett 25:03 So when did you meet Ja Rule?

Billy McFarland 25:05 Uh, during one of the- these Magnises member events. And the thing that s- really struck me at the time was how hard it was to book him, and when he finally like received the offer, he said yes and like, in- almost like instantly, right? And the problem was this like web of quasi-agents and middlemen and managers who all kind of claimed to like represent or know the talent, but in reality they knew someone who knew like a sister, who knew a brother, who knew a cousin, and it's like this terrible, really like opaque, nasty world. And coming from like a technology background, it made no sense to me. I knew there were other like kids like me, right, who would, you know, pay something reasonable to get access to this kind of like music talent, so we started talking about building an app which ended up becoming the Fire app, to provide like a window into like entertainers' pockets, for anybody to give them offers directly.

Steven Bartlett 25:54 And because of that experience with Ja Rule and just general- general artist booking, that's what- that was the genesis of this Fire app.

Billy McFarland 26:00 That was the complete genesis was like booking a lot of these rappers through Magnises, realizing that almost every single time we were going through middlemen who like weren't really like the- the manager or the agent, and then realizing, okay, I now have this network of, you know, 20 artists and their real managers, so I can give like access to other people through technology.

Steven Bartlett 26:20 And from what I was reading ...

Billy McFarland 26:21 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 26:22 Um, this is the- when one of the first big lies was told, which was around the success of Fire mobile app. I read this-

Billy McFarland 26:30 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 26:30 I think- I can't remember where I saw it. It might have been the Hulu documentary or something.

Billy McFarland 26:33 Yep.

Steven Bartlett 26:33 It said that in a term sheet to investors it was claimed to be worth $90 million but was actually doing 60K in business.

Billy McFarland 26:40 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 26:41 What is the truth around that? Where was the- where was the lie told here?

Billy McFarland 26:44 Yeah, so the Fire app and the Fire Festival really all come together at the same time. Um, it's crazy to think back like how- how quick I went down a bad path, but how quick everything happened as well during that time period. This is all 2016. Um, the Fire app was launched some point mid-2016, and the Fire Festival was, you know, conceived in September, October of 2016. So, it was all kind of around the same time.

Steven Bartlett 27:11 Why- why Fire Festival? How did that come to be? That- b- 'cause the Fire app came first.

Billy McFarland 27:14 Yeah. Fire app came first, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 27:15 How did you get from there to Fire Festival?

Billy McFarland 27:17 So we had a townhouse space, basically this clubhouse, if you will, for Magnises members, and one of the people working at the front desk, I lived a handful of blocks away, calls me one night and says, "There's this guy here who is building some crazy things at Google, but he says he flies planes and wants to fly you, and I think he's telling the truth. You have to come and meet him." So I ran over to the townhouse, I met this guy and like, absolute genius, like one of the best like developers of AI I've ever met in my life and, you know, he's gonna go on to, I think, change our world in very many ways. But he's like, "Listen, like, I fly for fun. I have a bunch of friends who do the same thing. We should take a few planes and do a trip to the outer islands of the Bahamas for your Magnises members." So, we'd been running these trips for years, and I found these outer islands to essentially be this like welcoming playground where there might be 10 people who live on the island who are just like so amazing and kindhearted and warm, and once you bring 18, 20, 24 people there from New York, everybody kind of drops like their pretense, and if you connect them around these like, almost like life-defying experiences and adventures, they really, really come together. So, it was running these trips for a number of years when I literally brought like one of these childhood friends that I mentioned, and Fire app had just launched. He said, "Hey man, you should totally do a music festival here for all Magnises members." So, that was the real person who came up with the idea, and that's how the Fire Festival happened.

Steven Bartlett 28:40 And where was- where was the- the first lie told in-

Billy McFarland 28:42 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 28:42 ... in the fundraising process? Was it on raising capital for the app? Was it capital for the Magnises?

Billy McFarland 28:48 Yeah, so the- the- the Fire f- um, the Fire Festival app didn't raise much money prior to like the festival announcement. We came up with a festival idea in September of 2016, shot and released that promotional video that I think a lot of people saw in December of 2016, and announced a April of 2017 like launch date. So the period was super, super short. So, somewhere in like the weeks leading up to that December promotional video, I started lying, and that was lying to Fire apps investors, lying to Fire Festivals investors, lying about Magnises numbers. It all kind of hit when, "Oh shit, Fire Festival is real. We're announcing a festival. We have X number of months to build a city in the middle of nowhere. How the fuck are we gonna do this?" And that just like set me off down that- that path.

Steven Bartlett 29:42 From I th- from what I recall, there was four months between you announcing-

Billy McFarland 29:48 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 29:48 ... the festival and the festival happening. So you're going to the middle of nowhere.

Billy McFarland 29:52 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 29:53 You've got to build sewage-

Billy McFarland 29:54 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 29:55 ... infrastructure, basically a city from scratch-

Billy McFarland 29:57 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 29:58 ... at 25 years old-

Billy McFarland 30:00 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 30:00 ... with ... out the capital to do it and without the experience in doing it, in four months, in 120 days.

Billy McFarland 30:10 So stupid. So bad. (laughs) I think I- like on my 25th birthday, we launched the trailer for the Fire Festival, and I still didn't think it was real at that time. Like, we had these great trips with a few dozen people and those we could totally handle. We launch a trailer then I remember waking up like, you know, quasi-hungover five or six hours later-And we'd sold like a half million dollars of tickets.

Steven Bartlett 30:35 If I said that to people-

Billy McFarland 30:37 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 30:37 ... now in my team-

Billy McFarland 30:38 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 30:38 And, you know, I've... You know, I'm, I'm, I'm 30 now.

Billy McFarland 30:40 Yeah. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 30:40 Same age as you.

Billy McFarland 30:41 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 30:41 Um, you know, I've got huge amounts of resources in terms of like contacts and capital. Everyone in my team would turn around to me and give me that look and say, "This is not possible, Steven."

Billy McFarland 30:51 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 30:53 Did people say that to you? Did no one say to you, "This is fucking craziness"?

Billy McFarland 30:57 Absolutely. And I think that part of the curse and, and part of the gift at the time was a lot of the reasons that were being given to me why things weren't possible were all solved with these short-term miracles. And of course, everybody said, "Hey, the end goal is impossible. You're a moron." Like, "You don't understand, like, what this takes." And then they would give three or four reasons about, like, smaller problems, right? And then I would go and, like, create magic and solve these three or four problems and be like, "Look, we've proved that. Like, we can handle the bigger stuff too." And I think it just took so many random, like, rolls of the dice to go our way to be able to create a failure so large. Because if we found, like, a stumbling block or a roadblock earlier on, it would've stopped the whole thing. But it was like this weird combination of smart, crazy people all kind of coming together for this wild idea and solving things we should never have been able to solve until we couldn't.

Steven Bartlett 31:56 Lying plays a big role in that though because-

Billy McFarland 31:57 100%.

Steven Bartlett 31:58 ... I think you have to add lying to the mix because I don't think you would've gotten those people to that island or on that plane without a series of almost like non-stop lying. There's no way that you would've... Well, in my view, um, if people knew the reality of... Well, in my view. I- if people knew the reality of the numbers-

Billy McFarland 32:14 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 32:14 ... and the situation on the ground, and I remember watching the documentaries, which I know you haven't seen-

Billy McFarland 32:18 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 32:18 ... still.

Billy McFarland 32:18 No, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 32:19 We're gonna talk about that, but I remember seeing there, there were moments where you were saying to team members, "Don't s- don't tell this investor th- the nature of the situation."

Billy McFarland 32:27 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 32:27 And had you been honest, I think investors, from my experience of building companies, would not have backed this-

Billy McFarland 32:32 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 32:32 ... the reality of the situation. If, if they knew the truth, they wouldn't have backed that.

Billy McFarland 32:36 Agree.

Steven Bartlett 32:37 So-

Billy McFarland 32:37 I almost think that like lying hurt things the most. The lying really pushed away the help that I needed, and I think that how we just announced the festival with our trailer video, we had already proven our ability to, you know, create hype, to bring a manageable number of people to these islands, to give them like an amazing experience. If I just like threw my, like hands up the next day and said, "Okay, I didn't expect to sell this many (laughs) tickets and I don't have the resources or, or like wherewithal to actually execute this now," I think the professionals would've flocked to me and said, "Okay, like, we are experts in doing this. Like, let us take over and you do what you're good at, but like let us, you know, be the adults in the room and make this thing actually happen."

Steven Bartlett 33:21 And why didn't you put your hands up and say that?

Billy McFarland 33:23 I, I, I... Y- that's like, uh, that's how I've lost (laughs) sleep over the past five years. But that's where like beyond lying, like breaking all the ethics and morals, which I totally did and totally wrong, it pushed away

Billy McFarland 33:34 the help.

Steven Bartlett 33:35 Are you a pathological liar? This is a claim that-

Billy McFarland 33:38 No.

Steven Bartlett 33:38 ... I've, I've, I've heard leveled at you by the judge in your case-

Billy McFarland 33:41 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 33:41 ... by other people that were working on Fyre Festival-

Billy McFarland 33:43 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 33:43 ... um, people in the documentaries.

Billy McFarland 33:46 Yeah. I think like my entire mantra and drive right now is to form like super, super close relationships, and I want those six or eight people to never question my integrity. And I think like getting on a microphone and telling the world, "Hey guys, like, I'm not a pathological liar," it's like, yeah, shut the fuck up. But it's like I wanna feel pride where I can like go home tonight and I know like these six to eight people that I can call or they can call me, you know, we will have our backs. And I really don't have the answer in terms of like how I address it to the world, but it's like to those six to eight people, and you guys know who you are, like let's build that trust.

Steven Bartlett 34:23 Because that's one of the... Even when I was thinking about doing this interview, obviously, you know, th- the foundation of the Diary of a CEO is honesty.

Billy McFarland 34:28 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 34:28 And I'm thinking, after all this stuff I've seen in these documentaries, how do I know that he's not just gonna come here and bullshit me?

Billy McFarland 34:33 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 34:34 How do I know that I'm not gonna be one of the investors or one of the other people that was, was lied to? How do I know he's gonna give me the truth?

Billy McFarland 34:39 Yep.

Steven Bartlett 34:40 How'd you receive that?

Billy McFarland 34:43 It's just so hard to hear. (laughs) Like, it's, it's super hard to hear. And I think like natural reaction is to always like fight back and argue, "Oh, I'm not a liar." But then you just like... And it just like digs you down a further hole. So I think it's just finding pride in a different area and it's like I am highly flawed and like any c- claims made to the contrary are just, are wrong. And for whatever good ideas I've had, I've had, you know, 10 times as many bad ones. And like clearly I lied to the extent that I would really hope that the vast majority of the population like would never be comfortable doing. So yeah, h- highly, highly flawed and I think like the next 30 years of my life will be defined by can I focus on my skillset? Can I be honest with a small number of people around me and like can I get help in those areas where I clearly need it? (paper rustling)

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Steven Bartlett 37:32 (paper rustling) You haven't watched the documentaries?

Billy McFarland 37:33 No. At the first prison I was at, or, or sh- like, when they... at the period when they came out, the, uh, the guys got like, a USB stick with both the documentaries and watched them. And I was like... I literally went outside. I think I was like, one of two people who wasn't in the TV room watching the documentary, but couldn't do it.

Steven Bartlett 37:52 Why?

Billy McFarland 37:53 I think at that time, I was still like... This is early 2019, so I was less than a year into my sentence. I think I was still like, in the combative phase where I just hadn't like, come to reality with everything that happened, and I was too scared to hear allegations or comments by other people and not be able to respond. And I like, realized like, being locked up and then having someone say something where it's probably like, 70% true and 30% false, I wouldn't have like, focused on or internalized the part that was true, even though that was probably most of it. I just would've gotten enraged by the false part, but I wouldn't have been able to do anything about it, so I felt like it was... I was not like, stable enough or mature enough at that time to, to watch it, and I probably still aren't- am not, but... (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 38:37 Really?

Billy McFarland 38:38 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 38:38 'Cause I was gonna ask you, the follow-up was wh- wh- why haven't you watched them now, then? If that was 2019, we're in 2022 now, so why st- y- haven't you watched them still?

Billy McFarland 38:45 So, I caught myself the other day, someone asked me the same question, and I said... and I think this shows like, I'm not like, mature enough to watch it yet. I said, "No one..." and this is, is probably slightly true but exaggerated, I said, "No one real interviewed for the documentary." Like, why would any businessperson who has anything going on in their life, you know, attach themselves to the event? That's mostly true, obviously, but, but still, some of the people who did interview, I'm sure were, you know, sharing real stories of real things that happened. So I, I'm just... I'm, I'm not ready. (laughs) There's no way... I don't know why, but I'm not ready.

Steven Bartlett 39:17 Because of how it m- might make you... it might trigger you in some type of way, or...?

Billy McFarland 39:20 I think so, and yeah, I just...

Steven Bartlett 39:23 I did ask myself.

Billy McFarland 39:23 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 39:23 I said, "Would you wa... If that happened to me, would I watch the documentaries?" And I'm gonna be honest, (sighs) I don't know. (laughs)

Billy McFarland 39:31 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 39:31 I don't know, but y- you must, everywhere you go now, have pieced together those documentaries, because people like me ask you these fucking questions.

Billy McFarland 39:38 For sure.

Steven Bartlett 39:39 (laughs)

Billy McFarland 39:39 (laughs) Un- unfortunately, I think I've, I've heard more than, than I- that I've wanted to, but I think I understand.

Steven Bartlett 39:45 Wh- how do you feel about the fact that like, probably for at least some time now, the centerpoint of conversations you have and interviews you do is gonna center on that? That's gonna like, that's gonna be a real defining thing for, for many that meet you.

Billy McFarland 39:59 I think it's super interesting like, to think about personally, and i- it's almost like, weird, because a lot of the people who have watched the documentary, whether they're friends or family members of other people, their advice is like, "You are incompetent. You can't do anything going forward. Like, you know, go work some entry-level, like, desk job for 70 hours a week for the rest of your life and, and shut up." And I think it's kind of like, ironic, right? Because then you're stuck living with the remorse, the guilt, y- the failure of what you did before. And I think the other option is, can I go about it but go for it and go for it honestly? And if I fail, it's okay, but you know, at least take the swing, and like, which path would, you know, make you prouder? And I've chosen the latter, which might be right, it might be wrong. But I just think it's really weird to me how a lot of like, the close friends who have watched the documentary, almost all their advice has just been like, "You can't do anything now." And maybe they're right. (laughs) But it's like, that's been like... I think that's the hardest thing to internalize from the whole, like, after-effect process where we currently stand.

Steven Bartlett 41:05 Well, you've clearly got an internal bias to just prove everybody wrong.

Billy McFarland 41:10 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 41:10 Which doesn't seem to have left you, right?

Billy McFarland 41:11 Yeah. Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 41:11 So when you hear that, the Billy that I, I mean, I've come to learn in the last, you know, couple of, uh, minutes that we've been s-

Billy McFarland 41:17 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 41:17 ... speaking together would just 100% use that as fuel, right?

Billy McFarland 41:21 I think like, I find pride differently now, and when you're locked away for four years and 10 months, like, when you're alone or with a cellmate but like, in solitary confinement, you can't leave, you have to find pride in like, the littlest and wee- uh, weirdest things. And you know, once you leave, 95% of it is just like, irrelevant and goes out the window. But I think like, finding pride is where it stands, and do I wanna be the, the, the guy who's honest but quit or the guy who's honest but went for it, and then whatever the outcome is the outcome is? And like, to me, I can find more pride in that path.

Steven Bartlett 41:53 Fyre Festival, you raised more than $20 million.

Billy McFarland 41:56 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 41:58 Now, that alone-

Billy McFarland 41:59 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 41:59 ... is not an easy thing to do.

Billy McFarland 42:00 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 42:02 You know, lying-

Billy McFarland 42:04 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 42:04 ... like, definitely aided that.

Billy McFarland 42:05 Ph- 100%.

Steven Bartlett 42:07 But even if s- people were lying, even if someone was just purely lying, there's still an element of salesmanship-

Billy McFarland 42:13 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 42:14 ... that goes into accomplishing such a big f- investment raise for a first-time music festival when you're 25 years old. What are your skillsets that, that made that happen? Let's just... lying and we, we put that on the table. You lied.

Billy McFarland 42:29 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 42:30 But what are the other skillsets that enabled that massive failure?

Billy McFarland 42:35 So, I think just like taking a second to like dive into the lies and why it was so bad. I think there's like a misconception, at least from what I've heard, that I woke up one day, made a fake spreadsheet, which is totally true, and then with that spreadsheet, you know, went and raised a bunch of money. I think the reality is it's just like not that simple. You know, I can make a bad spreadsheet tomorrow without my background and you're just not gonna go and raise $20 million, right? It's like, doesn't go like that. I think the hardest part is the trust, is that the majority of the people who were backing me had either invested in me since I was 19 years old or had seen me work since I was 19 or were, you know, referred or trusted someone like who fell into one of those camps. So it was like six years of trust and failure and struggle that I had to go through to get to the position where I could even ask for that kind of money. So more than the lie about the revenue at the time, which I almost think is not as bad as betraying the trust of the years it took to get to that point where I was even in the position to lie about the revenue.

Steven Bartlett 43:40 So there's that trust building, which again, the jury's probably out on whether that trust was built honestly.

Billy McFarland 43:45 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 43:45 'Cause you talked about Magnises also being inflated in terms of the numbers-

Billy McFarland 43:50 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 43:50 ... there being lies there. But then your personal skill, like what is it th- uh, in hindsight, you think, "Why did these people back me-"

Billy McFarland 43:58 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 43:58 ... as an individual?" What are your skillsets? Like charisma or is it your ability-

Billy McFarland 44:01 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 44:01 ... to talk, your communication skills? What was it?

Billy McFarland 44:04 I almost think that you could find similarities in these early trips that led to the Fyre Festival in some of the Magnises experiences, which is taking people who wouldn't usually meet, bringing them together, and then taking them to a place they've never been before, whether that's like a jet ski race at midnight (laughs) around these like uninhabited islands or like spearfishing for your own lobster with someone you've always wanted to meet. It's about just like connecting interesting people with like a tinge of crazy around these adventures and, like, those adventures could be physical, it could be virtual, but that's kind of always been, I think, what has intrigued backers. Whether that's a friend, a partner, a sponsor, an investor is to be part of that, you know, tornado of activity and connection and excitement.

Steven Bartlett 44:54 Interesting. So the people... So what I got from that is the people that invested in you wanted the same thing as the people that bought tickets to Fyre Festival. They wanted to be part of something really, really cool themselves.

Billy McFarland 45:03 They wanted to meet interesting people and do interesting crazy shit. Like, that's like (laughs) that's the MO.

Steven Bartlett 45:10 You ended up selling some 8,000 tickets for two weekends at Fyre Festival.

Billy McFarland 45:13 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 45:15 I mean, everyone remembers the orange tile campaign-

Billy McFarland 45:18 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 45:18 ... and the use of influencers. I mean, Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid-

Billy McFarland 45:21 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 45:21 ... Hailey Baldwin, Emily Ratajkowski. And you shot this in- this promo video, um, in the Bahamas, which became pretty viral-

Billy McFarland 45:30 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 45:30 ... because no one had ever seen that group of influencers together before.

Billy McFarland 45:33 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 45:34 Um, at that point, you know, you're now, you're now two months, three months out from the festival.

Billy McFarland 45:40 Yeah. Crazy.

Steven Bartlett 45:40 You've sold these fucking tickets. This is when the lies get really-

Billy McFarland 45:44 Bad.

Steven Bartlett 45:44 ... out there. Like, uh, in one of the documentaries it says that you put a villa up on the site for a quarter of a million-

Billy McFarland 45:49 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 45:49 ... to try and raise some money that you didn't have, um, and then I read further and further and I, and I was trying to understand the world you were in that was causing you to continually lie and lie and lie, and I heard about this urgent payment sheet.

Billy McFarland 45:59 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 46:01 What was this urgent payment sheet and how was that driving you?

Billy McFarland 46:04 We were at the point where the timeline that I had come up with was just so off and ridiculous, it just like made all of the payments and vendors just kind of go through the roof in terms of like the cost to make something happen so quickly. And like we just had no money, right? And we were just trying to get money from any source, whether it was investors or sponsors or customers or ticket sales, consulting jobs. I was like, you know, wearing 10 hats trying to get the income we needed to fund the Fyre Festival. And the money crunch was so bad I'd literally wake up every day, you know, at 9:00 AM to a sheet where we had a list of every payment we had to make before the bank wire cut off at four o'clock that day. So, I knew that by 2:00 PM I had to have that money come into our account so the team had enough time to wire it out before the four o'clock wire deadline. And so I'd wake up some days and it's like, "We need $4 million by 2:00 PM." So I'd have five hours to go out, source the investors, come to terms with them, and actually get the money in the account or else we were dead in the water. And like-

Steven Bartlett 47:03 That day, $4 million?

Billy McFarland 47:04 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 47:04 You need $4 million.

Billy McFarland 47:05 We managed to survive like this for almost 60 days and some days it was a hundred grand and some days it was $4 million. But like, it- it was, it was wild.

Steven Bartlett 47:12 On that day that it was $4 million-

Billy McFarland 47:14 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 47:14 ... you got till 2:00 PM. What'd you do?

Billy McFarland 47:17 Start- started calling investors and-

Steven Bartlett 47:18 Saying what?

Billy McFarland 47:20 I think like (exhales) I was telling them we were fucked unless we had this money. And I think that like a lot of the investors almost adapted a similar mindset to me that we're in so far that, "Hey, we've already spent X, what's an extra couple million dollars at this point? 'Cause if this thing works, we're all gonna make money." And th- that was the, that was the mindset that I was trying to build and I truly believed, obviously it was so silly now to look back on.

Steven Bartlett 47:48 Because in one of the, in one of the documentaries, they paint, they paint the opposite picture. They say that you were calling investors and not telling them the extent of how bad things were because-

Billy McFarland 47:56 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 47:57 ... uh, there was one particular moment where you'd sent an email telling someone not to tell the investor the true nature of the situation with the accommodation because they wouldn't give more money. So the documentary tells a completely different story-

Billy McFarland 48:07 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 48:08 ... about being opaque-

Billy McFarland 48:10 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 48:11 ... untransparent to investors in those crunch moments.

Billy McFarland 48:14 I think like one of the bad thing is, is I definitely sheltered information. Like, not every investor would have the same information, not every team member had the same information, so I certainly kept a lot of the logistical problems in the dark. But if I knew like one investor could solve this problem, you know, I would tell them about the logistics problem, but then say, "Don't tell anybody else, but we need your help here." So...I was picking and choosing people who I thought would be sympathetic or capable of handling certain situations. So I mean, terrible approach, but it was like a mix of, "Hey, we're in this far. We need a little bit more, so give it to us." And also a mix of, "Well, we can't tell everybody this because if people realize, you know, we need $4 million by two o'clock today, we sound crazy and, and we're dead."

Steven Bartlett 48:58 People hearing that situation where you have this urgent payment sheet and you're waking up in the morning and it says 100K on it, 200K-

Billy McFarland 49:04 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 49:04 ... 50K-

Billy McFarland 49:05 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 49:05 ... um, $4 million.

Billy McFarland 49:06 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 49:07 Um, one of the things in the documentary showed that you were popping up, like, fake villas and stuff like that to meet the debt owed on that payment sheet. So if you owed fif- if you needed 50K that day-

Billy McFarland 49:19 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 49:19 ... pop a villa online, call it the Dolphin-

Billy McFarland 49:21 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 49:21 ... uh, Villa, sell it for 50K and that would cover th- the solution. Is that true?

Billy McFarland 49:26 I don't think it was as one-to-one as that.

Steven Bartlett 49:27 Right.

Billy McFarland 49:28 Um, we certainly were trying to sell as many expensive ticket package as possible. Whether it was-

Steven Bartlett 49:33 That didn't exist?

Billy McFarland 49:34 That, whether it was, like, boats or yachts that, like, you know, we would go and charter, or whether it was, like, high-end villas that we were trying to rent.

Steven Bartlett 49:42 But you didn't have them at the time?

Billy McFarland 49:44 So I think our numbers were not, like, one to one at the end of the day.

Steven Bartlett 49:47 Okay. Because-

Billy McFarland 49:47 However, we did rent a couple hundred villas. So, and I've heard so many conflicting, like, stories from this, but, you know, we did rent a couple hundred villas and, uh, I'm sure we were off by a number, but it wasn't like, hey, we have no villas on the island.

Steven Bartlett 49:58 Th- th- there was a quarter million dollar package for-

Billy McFarland 50:01 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 50:01 ... like, a villa or a yacht or something.

Billy McFarland 50:03 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 50:03 Did that sell?

Billy McFarland 50:04 Um, I think we sold a couple, couple boats for, like, in that range.

Steven Bartlett 50:08 Quarter, quarter million dollars?

Billy McFarland 50:09 And then we had, there was a couple houses in the island which were like, these, like, 10 bedroom, you know, like, private estate type things.

Steven Bartlett 50:15 Hm.

Billy McFarland 50:15 We sold a number of them. I don't think it was, like... It wasn't tons, but we sold a couple.

Steven Bartlett 50:19 Were the boats... Did, did boats exist?

Billy McFarland 50:21 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 50:21 Like, on the day?

Billy McFarland 50:22 We, we partnered with a, basically, like, this, like, yacht brokerage company, so we would just, like, route it through there.

Steven Bartlett 50:27 And as the... So

Steven Bartlett 50:29 going back to my point about that urgent payment sheet-

Billy McFarland 50:31 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 50:31 ... you just said that you'd wake up, like-

Billy McFarland 50:33 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 50:33 ... you'd wake up on days, look at the urgent payment sheet. You've got-

Billy McFarland 50:36 Be like, "Oh, shit."

Steven Bartlett 50:36 You'd be like, "Oh, shit." Now I've s- I've sat here with, um, the CEO of a, one of the disruptive banks out in Europe called Tom Monzo and he talked about-

Billy McFarland 50:45 Okay.

Steven Bartlett 50:45 ... the, like, mental torment. He had a, a, a red phone by his bed.

Billy McFarland 50:48 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 50:48 He's running a bank here.

Billy McFarland 50:49 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 50:50 So, he'd wake up every day and he'd have a moment of, like, dread waking up because the stress and the pressure of, you know, having to run a bank. When you're waking up on those days-

Billy McFarland 51:00 Terrible, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 51:00 ... what is the, like, the mental health implication? What did you feel?

Billy McFarland 51:04 It was awful, and I think the one benefit and detriment that I had w- was an end date. Like, this is all gonna end on, whether right or wrong, like, on the festival date, right? We're either gonna succeed and, like, be champions or we're gonna drastically fail, and either way, like, let's go all in to try to make that happen.

Steven Bartlett 51:24 And what was the... You say the word awful. Take me into the world's, word awful. Give me a description of what that actually means in reality. What are the symptoms of that?

Billy McFarland 51:30 I mean, I was fat as shit.

Steven Bartlett 51:32 Yeah.

Billy McFarland 51:32 Like, my, my heart was out of rhythm. You know (laughs) ?

Steven Bartlett 51:33 Your heart was out, was out of rhythm?

Billy McFarland 51:35 Yeah. Like, I think, like, lost interest in sexual relationships, lost interest in, like, friendship relationships that weren't transactional, and it became, like, all work and nothing else mattered. And, like, looked terrible, felt terrible, and I could just... It sucks and I can't imagine, like, the red phone at the bank because, like, that's never ending, right? Like, maybe you can say, "Hey, you know, I'll sell or hire a new CEO in seven years," but I can't imagine, like, that kinda window. That would... Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 52:01 Well, he u- ultimately quit after seven years building up the business.

Billy McFarland 52:04 Uh, I don't know.

Narrator 52:04 Yes, there we go.

Steven Bartlett 52:05 I think it was valued at billio- billions when he quit.

Billy McFarland 52:06 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 52:06 And when he did a piece in one of the newspapers, he cited his, his mental health. Um...

Billy McFarland 52:12 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 52:12 Did you experience anxiety?

Billy McFarland 52:14 For sure. Um... I was a, I was afraid to show weakness, right? So it's like, I didn't acknowledge it to myself. I certainly didn't acknowledge it to anybody else. But, like, I knew something was wrong. I shouldn't be 24 and my heart's skipping beats. Like, you know, that's not, not normal. There's no reason why that should be happening. But, um, yeah, I just refused to acknowledge it and, like, would tell myself, "Oh, you're just, you're just soft." Like, plenty of people have had to live with, like, much worse stress than this. Figure it out. Suck it up."

Steven Bartlett 52:43 Do you know that feeling of anxiety, the one I'm talking about where it's, it's like constant state of like-

Billy McFarland 52:46 For sure.

Steven Bartlett 52:47 And you exper- you were experiencing that in-

Billy McFarland 52:49 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 52:49 ... the lead up to the festival?

Billy McFarland 52:50 Absolutely.

Steven Bartlett 52:50 How badly?

Billy McFarland 52:51 It was bad and... Yeah, I mean, like, looking back, it's crazy. Like, no one wants to live, right, with the dread to wake up every morning not knowing, like, what that Excel document's gonna be and then who I have to beg or call or plead or sell to, to solve that problem. It just i- it's a shitty life.

Steven Bartlett 53:08 But you th- you thought you were in too deep and you couldn't turn back?

Billy McFarland 53:10 Yeah. I thought that, like, I, I wrongly convinced myself that there was an end goal and there was a solution. Like, if the event worked and it went well, we'd have a great brand and everybody's happy. Everybody makes money. Everybody's gonna wanna come next year. And obviously it was, it was so stupid and silly, but that was the pure... I had the finish line in sight.

Steven Bartlett 53:30 When did you realize it had all gone wrong?

Billy McFarland 53:34 Yeah. The night before the... So, the festival was scheduled to be Friday, Saturday and Sunday for two weekends. Um, we had to charter two 737 planes and open up, like, a temporary terminal in Miami to basically fly everybody to the island, and given we only had two planes, we started to fly guests in early on a Thursday morning before, like, before the festival started on Friday. And late that Wednesday night, we were, like, rushing to get everything ready in time and just, like, walk into the room around midnight and, like, the entire team was, like, slumped over on their chairs, like, asleep on the couch, like, heads, like, leaning on the kitchen table. And, like, it seemed like all the energy at the same time had just, like, left the entire team. And, like, almost, like, as if on cue, as if written by a movie, a storm rolls in. (laughs) Like late that Wednesday night, and it's like, "Oh shit." Like, "I've lost a team. Y- you can't beat the weather." Like, we're, we're not in a good spot.

Steven Bartlett 54:31 Thinking back to the promo, um, video that you made and comment you made on the Full Send podcast about how the guy that buys the yachts and gets all the girls to come and then pays for it and subsidizes it-

Billy McFarland 54:41 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 54:42 ... is never a happy man.

Billy McFarland 54:44 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 54:44 Um-Are you ... this was a question I was pondering as I was reading about your story, is like, what are your insecurities? Because a lot of this seems to be driven by some kind of like-

Billy McFarland 54:53 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 54:53 ... deep insecurity to, like-

Billy McFarland 54:54 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 54:54 ... prove o- prove others right, to be the man, to be the guy-

Billy McFarland 54:57 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 54:58 ... to throw the best party. And the validation on a psychological level, that must be giving some kind of insecurity, some hole it must be filling.

Billy McFarland 55:04 For sure, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 55:05 What are your insecurities and what were they?

Billy McFarland 55:10 Good question. Yeah. Let me think. Jus- I think the need, it always kind of came back as the need to prove this path, right? Of like, I don't need school. I don't need the path that we were all taught is the right path. Like, my path is better and it leads to more interesting and more exciting life. And like, I think I always knew that, but I was so insecure and I wanted to have everybody else believe it. And I would get frustrated when people didn't share those same beliefs as me. So, I think that's been part of the learning process as well is to understand that everybody can't believe and like the same thing, and that's okay, and like, not taking it personally when that happens.

Steven Bartlett 55:49 Have- Have you got any insecurities around women?

Billy McFarland 55:52 I don't know.

Steven Bartlett 55:53 Yeah?

Billy McFarland 55:53 Yeah. It's- It just seems-

Steven Bartlett 55:55 Yeah.

Billy McFarland 55:55 ... to be centered on this desire to like, prove everybody wrong and like, fuck the system and like-

Steven Bartlett 56:00 Yeah.

Billy McFarland 56:00 Um ... I still ha- I'm still not quite clear in my mind where that, where that came from.

Steven Bartlett 56:04 Mm-hmm.

Billy McFarland 56:04 Was it, was he bullied in school? Was it, was there a teacher that said some shit to him that he couldn't do it? Was it his parents told him he couldn't do it?

Steven Bartlett 56:10 I think part of it is like, the curse of ... of things never being enough, right? And I- I guess I don't know what the derivation of that is, but you know, whether it's business success or friendship success, where you live, your home, your possessions, like, your, the- the love that someone has for you, especially during that time of my life, I was almost like, jaded into always thinking that it wasn't enough. Like, if someone loved me, they didn't love me enough, or if like, I had a great, like, day at work, the day wasn't good enough. And I think it all kind of c- come back to like, maybe I'm j- I'm thinking out loud here, maybe it was like the early exposure at like 18 and 19 to like, titans of industry, and then me comparing to them, where it's like, not feasible to get there without, you know, 20, 30, 40 years of work that they had put in. But it's like, I wanted everything at that level and I wanted it now. So, if you gave me this much, but it wasn't like where they were, I wasn't satisfied with it. So I think it was like, the early exposure combined with like, the impatience and need to have it.

Steven Bartlett 57:12 There's this really, um, well-publicized scene where you're stood on a crate-

Billy McFarland 57:19 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 57:19 ... on the day of the festival. And you've got all of these partygoers around you-

Billy McFarland 57:23 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 57:23 ... kind of screaming and asking questions, and some of them a little bit drunk because they'd been off-

Billy McFarland 57:27 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 57:27 ... sent to a bar on the other side-

Billy McFarland 57:28 Yeah, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 57:29 ... of the island when you were trying to sort of buy yourself time. What was going on when you were stood on that crate and what were you thinking and feeling? Were you shitting yourself?

Billy McFarland 57:36 I mean, right now I realize just like how bad my management skills were at the time. Like, where the fuck is everybody? Like, we had, they weren't all full-time employees. A lot of them were like local contractors or whatever, but we had almost 800 people, you know, the day of the festival, like working there. And I just felt like I was surrounded by these people. I couldn't find any of my team members and I had, I'm not gonna name the publication, but I had a publication on the phone with me saying, you know, "We heard he ran off on your yacht with like cocaine and hookers." Like, I don't have a yacht, never done cocaine. Like, there were no hookers (laughs) . And but they're also live streaming me on the, on the cover of their web page. So I'm like yelling at them. I'm getting yelled at by like, you know, the 50 or 100 concertgoers right there. I just couldn't find anybody. But it just goes to show, I just like didn't have the systems in place to, or the knowledge to manage everything. But that was my first reaction is like, where the hell is everybody?

Steven Bartlett 58:25 I heard you made the decision to cancel the festival when someone incorrectly told you that people had died.

Billy McFarland 58:30 Yeah. I was told shortly after that moment, maybe an hour or two later, that three people had died. Like, and thankfully no one was physically hurt, like at all to my knowledge. But I was told these elaborate stories.

Steven Bartlett 58:42 Who told you that?

Billy McFarland 58:43 Uh, team members, employees. And I think the reality was, looking back now, is that concertgoers were like reading things on Twitter and then coming and running to employees and telling them this. But like, verified Twitter accounts, this is back in, what, '17? Where like announcing like, "Gunshots fired," like, "People hit." Like, it was going all over Twitter that people were getting shot (laughs) and things like that. And like, none of this was true. But by the time it got to me, the details were so vivid. I just didn't have like, the ability to like, step back, take a deep breath, recalibrate and try to like, think through the information. I was like, "Oh shit, people are dead. Okay, cancel this. Turn the plans around, get everybody home."

Steven Bartlett 59:21 How did that feel when you heard that? If someone in my team came to me and said that-

Billy McFarland 59:24 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 59:24 ... I was putting on an event and three people were dead already-

Billy McFarland 59:27 Yeah. I mean, I just freaked out and said, "Get everybody out of here. Get everybody back to Miami." And that was like, that was the response. But yeah, I was just, phew. Just ... I just didn't have the ability to like, okay, like what's actually happening? How can we prevent this? It was more of just like a quick knee-jerk, "All right. Send everybody home. It's over."

Steven Bartlett 59:47 One of the, I think, legendary moments from the documentary-

Billy McFarland 59:51 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 59:51 ... which I know you've been asked about and heard about before, is when Andy King (laughs) says that he, you called him and asked him to suck a dick. Suck, literally suck a penis-

Billy McFarland 1:00:02 Crazy.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:02 ... to have the water imported because the border agents had held it up. What's the truth in that situation? Like, did you ask him to suck a penis?

Billy McFarland 1:00:11 I've heard so many variations of this story. And no, he was never ordered to go suck a guy's dick. (laughs) I think-

Steven Bartlett 1:00:17 He literally put mouthwash in. He- he was gonna suck- suck some dick. He was-

Billy McFarland 1:00:20 Yeah. That's news to me. Or I mean, I've obviously heard the story many times, but I think the, the comment was in jest. Like, "Go suck this guy's dick. Get this water, like whatever it takes." More of like, you know, go suck up to him and get the water released. Like, do anything beyond paying this guy, right? Like, you can't, you can't pay the, the customs people. So like, go do whatever it takes and just convince him that our festival is gonna fail if people can't drink water.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:41 There's a r- he's, he's obviously a gay man.

Billy McFarland 1:00:43 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:43 And the border agent was gay, right?

Billy McFarland 1:00:45 Uh, I think so, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:46 So, the assertion in the documentary was because he was gay-You'd asked him to suck, suck a dick if he had to. And he-

Billy McFarland 1:00:52 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:52 ... he took that literally. So he, he says he, he went and put mouthwash in.

Billy McFarland 1:00:57 (laughs) Crazy.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:57 And he headed down there fully prepared to suck a dick.

Billy McFarland 1:01:00 I think that makes for good TV, but yeah, (laughs) I certainly don't recall it happening like that, unfortunately.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:05 (laughs)

Billy McFarland 1:01:06 Crazy.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:08 Do you still speak to him?

Billy McFarland 1:01:09 Um, I've heard from him recently. Yeah, so.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:12 Are you on good terms?

Billy McFarland 1:01:14 Uh, he's a, he's a ... I think he's a good guy. I think he tried his best to, um, to help and unfortunately he was brought on pretty late in, like, the process.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:21 Hm.

Billy McFarland 1:01:21 So, he wasn't there from the beginning, but I think obviously if he was willing to do that, he went above and beyond to-

Steven Bartlett 1:01:26 Yeah, listen, if I-

Billy McFarland 1:01:27 ... try to make the festival happen and I'm sure ... Um, yeah, I wish him all the best.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:30 If I had a friend that was willing to go to those lengths for me, and I have no friend that would do that for me, um, I certainly would, would stay in touch and keep them on side.

Billy McFarland 1:01:38 Yeah. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 1:01:39 Um, in the wake of Fyre Festival, what happens, you eventually fly back to New York. One of the scenes that really did get me in the documentary on an emotional level was watching that wonderful bo- Bohemian lady talk about how she lost her s- her life savings.

Billy McFarland 1:01:50 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:51 Um, you know who I'm referring to, right?

Billy McFarland 1:01:52 Uh, I do know, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:53 Yeah. Um, how- how'd you feel about that when you hear that? That some ... that locals who worked on that hadn't been paid and they're, you know, they're in ... They're not living privileged lives necessarily.

Billy McFarland 1:02:06 Yeah. I mean, uh, it's terrible. And the reality is, there are people who are owed there, and they're owed for the last two weeks of work before the festival. I think everybody's a little bit different, but getting them paid back, super important to me and trying to find ways to start that process now. Um, I'd never met that lady before but, you know, her story is obviously super sad and, you know, um, I have heard from her through friends recently and, you know, hope we can figure out, you know, what is owed to everybody and start making those steps there. But yeah, un- unfortunately I've never met her, but hope to make it right by her.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:39 When you, when you leave the Bahamas after that event, you come back to New York.

Billy McFarland 1:02:43 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:44 You come back to a shit storm.

Billy McFarland 1:02:45 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:46 Um, uh, y- I mean, i- i- the people that have given you, what, 26, 27 million dollars in cash-

Billy McFarland 1:02:50 Yep.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:52 ... must be pretty mad.

Billy McFarland 1:02:54 For sure. I, I land back on like, the Sunday night after the festival around midnight and then that morning early, the FBI is at my door. And I think like, the initial investors who got really mad thought that the whole festival was a hoax and that I had stolen the money and had it hidden somewhere and I was like, lying about the entire thing. And so, I just like, enter this whirlwind of, of hell.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:17 Your investors sti- like, basically went to the FBI?

Billy McFarland 1:03:20 Yeah. Yeah, from, from, from what I understand, yes.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:22 What makes you ... What gives you that understanding?

Billy McFarland 1:03:25 I, basically I was called and told what was gonna happen. It's like, like, "You fucked up. It's too late." Like, "Here's what's gonna happen now." And, and like, I was totally, totally guilty and I woulda gone to jail, like, if no one made that phone call. It just made the process happ- like, process kicked off faster, but once it kicks off, you know, it's outta the, outta the hands of the investors and into the justice system and, and I was black and white guilty. There was no gray area there.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:47 And your in- one of your investors called you and told you that if you didn't give them X dollar in cash-

Billy McFarland 1:03:52 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:52 ... they would, they would do more?

Billy McFarland 1:03:53 They, they ... The exact lines were like, "We need this amount of money or else you're gonna be o- on han- in handcuffs on the front page of the Wall Street Journal." And I was like ... didn't have the money, first of all.

Steven Bartlett 1:04:04 How much was it?

Billy McFarland 1:04:05 Uh, I don't wanna say 'cause then people will know who the investor probably is, but-

Steven Bartlett 1:04:09 Seven figures?

Billy McFarland 1:04:10 Yeah. Yeah, uh, yeah, more than a million dollars. Uh, more than one, less than 10. So (laughs) , um, I didn't have it. Uh, uh, and then I was also kinda like certainly naive in my response. At the time, I just couldn't fathom like, that I was lying to investors, right? Like, I knew I was trying my best to make the festival work and the media's initial like, line of questioning and the guests' line of questioning as it was all falling apart was like, "This was a scam. You didn't try to do this." So, my reaction was like, "No, I tried. I'm trying my best." But I couldn't like, really understand the magnitude and the gravity of, of the crimes I did commit. So, I was still kinda fighting back like, "Oh, I didn't do anything wrong. I tried my best." Then of course like, I get back and realize, oh shit. I mean, it didn't happen overnight, but like, here's what actually happened. And yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:04:55 When you get, when you get back, um, the criminality doesn't stop though, does it?

Billy McFarland 1:04:59 No. Uh-

Steven Bartlett 1:05:00 This is the bit, honestly-

Billy McFarland 1:05:01 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:05:01 ... that really f- got me in the document-

Billy McFarland 1:05:03 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:05:03 'Cause I was like, ah, man, you know, some could say young kid, negligent, inexperienced, his ambition was greater than his execution.

Billy McFarland 1:05:11 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:05:12 Told loads of lies. At that point he, he learns his lesson.

Billy McFarland 1:05:15 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:05:15 But then for the criminality and lying to continue beyond that point with this NYC VIP access-

Billy McFarland 1:05:21 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:05:21 ... where you start selling fake tickets, give me the context. Why did that happen?

Billy McFarland 1:05:26 Yeah. I've ... Many smart people have sis- (laughs) has said the same thing as you. And I was just caught in this process where okay, this investor, he didn't threaten me, but the investor kinda gave me an ultimatum. I blew him off and he was right. He got me arrested. It's all about the money. I have to pay everybody back now. All right. I'm gonna, I'm gonna get him his money and I wasn't like communicating with him at this point, but I'm gonna get him his money, I'm gonna pay everybody else back and then this is all gonna go away and I can solve this. And I thought that th- the proper response to a criminal process was to solve the problem when the proper response to a criminal process is to sit down, shut the fuck up and like, accept your punishment and just, just take it. And any other response is just like, the wrong way to do it, y-

Steven Bartlett 1:06:09 So, you were on bail.

Billy McFarland 1:06:10 I was on bail. And like (sighs) it was all about this desire like, okay, now it's about the money. Let me pay people back. And back in the Magnises days, like, and the early Fyre days, brands would essentially pay us to like, host these events for our members or to invite members to, to random things and I would always get invited to these like, charity events and the charity galas and concerts and you know, a- award shows and whatever it may be. I can get plus one or plus two depending on it. And I thought like, oh, this is a great way to make money. I can just like, you know, call these brands back and ask for a favor and get a few spots and sell these tickets. I just like, was so stupid and so wrong and obviously couldn't fulfill what I was selling and like, fucked up and it, it's kept me awake at night.... just as much if not more than the festival, so we're on the same page there.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:55 So, so you had Hamilton, the Super Bowl-

Billy McFarland 1:06:57 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:57 You would, you would email people, cold call them, tell them you had tickets-

Billy McFarland 1:07:00 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:00 ... take the money. And then when the event happened...

Billy McFarland 1:07:03 I would scramble and try to get it, and sometimes I could but m- many times I couldn't.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:07 And you would keep th- keep their money?

Billy McFarland 1:07:09 I would refund it if the event didn't happen, but the problem was I was just so sold out for events in the future that I had no chance of actually fulfilling that, you know, when my bail got revoked and I got arrested, it was just, like, they lost their money. It was not possible.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:20 And you were doing, were you doing this in the Magnises days? I heard a story about Hamilton.

Billy McFarland 1:07:23 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:23 You said you had 200 tickets to Hamilton.

Billy McFarland 1:07:25 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:07:25 Um, and then when the event came near, you just, like, randomly scrambled on, like, s- TicketHub or StubHub or whatever it is and bought the tickets last minute and would go an- and hand, hand them out, but then-

Billy McFarland 1:07:33 Yeah, so when ... in the lying period leading up to the festival, I was trying to get money from everywhere and definitely was trying to get more money from Magnises to help pay the bills as well. Um, I was so stupid. Like, was certainly overselling access to Magnises events, but we ended up either buying the tickets, like, at an inflated rate or refunding everybody, so I lost money every single time. You know, i- it was crazy, like, just so stupid.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:01 Um, your, your ability to be so comfortable with lying-

Billy McFarland 1:08:06 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:06 ... at that point in your life is sk- terrifying.

Billy McFarland 1:08:09 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:12 It's ... one could almost say it's like, it's kinda, it's kinda (sighs) I don't know if I even nece- should say this, but kinda lucky that, like, it was, wasn't on e- an even bigger scale and it wasn't-

Billy McFarland 1:08:24 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:24 ... like, life or death-

Billy McFarland 1:08:26 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:26 ... stuff that you were doing-

Billy McFarland 1:08:27 Agree.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:27 ... in terms of ... You know what I mean? Because if you're that comfortable lying to people, that could've been (sighs) ... and you have the sales ability clearly-

Billy McFarland 1:08:33 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:08:34 ... that could've been a ... Like, what ... How has your, uh, your relationship with lying evolved in the last couple of years since you've been in jail and you've come out? Like, honestly, how has it changed?

Billy McFarland 1:08:41 Yeah. (sighs) The lies at the time, I think just the craziest part was how stupid it was from every level. Like, you know, you work hard to build relationships with friends, with loved ones, with supporters. And obviously as soon as you lie to them, it's gonna get found out, whether it's the next day or in a year or in five years, they're gonna-

Steven Bartlett 1:09:05 You didn't believe that.

Billy McFarland 1:09:06 What?

Steven Bartlett 1:09:07 You didn't seem to ever believe that it would be found out.

Billy McFarland 1:09:09 I didn't ... I always knew in the back of my mind they're gonna find out, but I convinced myself that if I had made them, if I gave them what they want, which I thought was happiness and success, it wouldn't have mattered.

Steven Bartlett 1:09:18 Okay.

Billy McFarland 1:09:18 Like, that's where I went wrong. And it's like, okay, they're gonna know that our revenue wasn't this, but I'm gonna make the money and they're gonna have fun, so th- they're gonna love me still. And like (laughs) it's so crazy to think about now, but, like, that was the thought process. And that's, like, o- even, like, for the Magnises