The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - Fyre Festival's Billy McFarland On Prison Life, Redemption, & How To Overcome Life's Greatest Setbacks

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

#623: Today, we're sitting down with the infamous Billy McFarland. Billy McFarland is best known for organizing Fyre Festival, the VIP party that became infamous when hundreds of attendees were left stranded in the Bahamas with half-built huts to sleep in and cold cheese sandwiches to eat. McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison for wire fraud charges in relation to Fyre Festival. Now, McFarland is free and has mentioned that a possible follow-up to Fyre Festival is 'finally happening.' Today, Billy joins us for a conversation about Fyre Fest, how it got started, what went wrong, and everything there is to know about his experience in jail. He also dives into what he's learned since Fyre Fest and how he's approaching Fyre Fest #2. To connect with Billy McFarland click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To subscribe to our YouTube Page click HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential This episode is brought to you by AG1 If you want to take ownership of your health, it starts with AG1. Go to drinkAG1.com/SKINNY to get a free 1-year supply of Vitamin D3K2 AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase. This episode is brought to you by Branch Basics The Branch Basics Premium Starter Kit will provide you with everything you need to replace all of your toxic cleaning products in your home. It’s really a no-brainer. Go to branchbasics.com and use code SKINNY for 15% off their starter kit and free shipping. This episode is brought to you by Dreamland Baby Use code code SKINNYBOGO23 at checkout for Buy One Get One Free off all Weighted Products at dreamlandbabyco.com This episode is brought to you by Armra ARMRA Colostrum strengthens immunity, ignites metabolism, fortifies gut health, activates hair growth and skin radiance, and powers fitness performance and recovery. Visit www.tryarmra.com/skinny or use code SKINNY at checkout for 15% off your first purchase. This episode is brought to you by WeightWatchers WeightWatchers is the #1 doctor recommended weight-management program and the trusted authority in evidence based weight-health. Visit ww.com/tsc to see if you qualify, and if you do, used code TSC25 to get one free month plus $25 off your second month. This episode is brought to you by OneSkin Visit oneskin.co and use code SKINNY15 at checkout for 15% off your first purchase. Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to The Skinny Confidential, him and her.

The pessimistic view here, I think that small failures are really good for you. Potential, him and her. The pessimistic view here, I think that small failures are really good for you. I think that huge failures are actually like devastating. And I think the reality is most people can't come back from huge failures. And like I saw with a lot of capable guys in jail who just can't recover from it. And it's really, really sad. I think all the little failures I had leading up to that were very, very beneficial. And this one probably wasn't. But at the end of the day, I think there's so many times when after we failed and we want to get back started again, we predict problems, right? Oh, well, if we start

doing well in six months, this is going to happen. Well, in nine months, this is going to happen. In 12 months, this is going to happen. In reality, almost all those problems end up sorting themselves if you just take action. So I think don't think about what problems you might have in the future. Just start going now, and those problems will most likely disappear. Welcome back, everybody. Welcome back to the Skinny Confidential, him and her show. Today, we have a fire episode, no pun intended, but I had to say it, with Billy McFarlane. Billy McFarlane, as you guys may remember, is best known for organizing Fyre Festival, the VIP party that became infamous when hundreds of attendees were left stranded in the Bahamas with half-built huts to sleep in and cold cheese sandwiches.

I'm sure you guys all saw that documentary. It was a huge topic years ago that had a ton of attention, which eventually led Billy to prison. He was actually sentenced to six years for wire fraud, which we get into on this episode. And I got to say, sometimes we have episodes on this show that are absolutely shocking. I don't know exactly how we get into these conversations. This show has taken so many turns over the years, but this was definitely one of the more fascinating episodes. I think a lot of people have their already preconceived notions about Billy or what

they think he did or did not do. And I think this is one of the first interviews where he's really opened up and shared from his perspective. We definitely came away from this episode with a completely different perspective of what we thought. Some of the topics include how he grew up and made companies starting at the age of 10 years old, how the seed of Fyre Fest began, how Fyre Fest was planned and what went wrong, what it's like to go to jail for that long, what prison taught him and how he's moving forward and how jail affected his entire life and those in it. This is a fascinating topic that I know many are interested in. And now we get to hear it right from the horse's mouth or from Billy's mouth and learn

all about Fyre Fest and what's next, maybe even a Fyre Fest too. With that, Billy McFarland, welcome to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. This is the Skinny Confidential Him and Her. All right, Billy, what the hell is going on here? What's happening now? Let's go back with you a little bit. We're super excited to interview you first of all. Great to be here. Thank you for doing this.

Thanks, Michael. Thanks, Lauren. I think most people know you from Fyre Festival, but for those that need a little bit more context or you provide a little more context, give us a little bit of background, you before Fyre Festival. But for those that need a little bit more context or you provide a little more context, give us a little bit of background, you before Fyre Festival. Like even when you were a little, like were you an entrepreneur when you were a little? You know Fyre Fest was literally only four months. It was a trailer video of an idea in December with a promise for a date in April and then like four months of craziness and all the stories are just from those like pieces of four months. But there was so much that led up to that moment that allowed all the good

things and allowed all the really, really bad things, which were terrible to happen. So yeah, so much more than just a four month period and crazy how like your entire life story gets condensed into just four months. I want to get more than, I want to go like way back with you. Like when you were a little boy, were you entrepreneurial? I think the biggest curse and biggest gift was I got a computer in fifth grade. And this is in the early, early days of cable internet. So just transitioning from super slow dial-up to actually being able to do things online. And so I was about 10 years old and got this computer and quickly learned this was the place where I had no rules and had no boundaries. No parents, no teachers, no siblings,

no relatives could tell me what to do. And I can kind of go on the internet and it was lawless at the time. And that was kind of my coming of age online. So what are you doing online when you're 10 years old? Like, what is it? Are you watching porn? Are you crafting a, like, are you on, what's that game that you fucking guys all play? Minecraft, Warcraft, whatever the fuck it's called. No, no, no. See, young people these days will never understand the pain of dialing up through like a 56K. I understand that. I understand that. But are you just online browsing the internet? Are you like building something online? I just build basic websites to start. Got it. And then I started building websites and basically pretending like I was an adult

to all these business guys online. And I was like parading around with a really terrible, fake, deep voice. Like my voice now isn't even deep, but as a 10-year-old trying to have a deep voice, it's hilarious. Talking to all these 40-year-old guys trying to start businesses from my basement in my parents' house.

But what kind of businesses were they? So, and I guess what I'm trying to get at is, were you always a hustler? Were you always working for yourself? You know, always looking for new ideas to build businesses against? I think I didn't really know what a business was, but it felt like I could,

if I had my own resources, I could create freedom that I didn't have in my real life. So I wanted to put my website online and realize I had to pay somebody, like pay a server company to put the website online. Like, all right, I'll just start a server company. So then when I was 13, I started a server company

and hired three full-time employees in India who each worked eight-hour shifts seven days a week. There it is, Billy. That's what I was asking. That's what I want to know. I knew there was something. I had to pull it out of you. I knew it. You created a fucking server company. That is wild. Yeah. I got in trouble when I got a wedding invitation. The head guy's name was Rex. So I got his wedding invitation in India in the mail two years later. My mom's like, what the hell is some grown man from India doing inviting you to his wedding? So the house came crumbling down. I was waiting. I knew there was like, I feel like there's breadcrumbs that lead up to this moment. What were these other breadcrumbs that you remember looking back on your childhood like that?

I started a website in the MySpace era, and I called it Your Hot Site. And it was meant to be a private MySpace for middle school kids. And it was really, really awesome for four days until the principal called me in and was like, someone's going to die in here. You have to shut it down immediately. So that was my first introduction to like, wow, I can build something online that everybody in my life that I know at the time, like all my middle school friends, but all use. And that was just like the coolest feeling in the world. So I think like that kind of gave me the adrenaline that like, wow, I can actually like type something at home that impacts people's lives. Like that's really, really wild.

You're hot. You should bring that back. It's just called your hot site. It's your hot site. Yeah. So I was 13, so 2003, 2004. Yeah, and this is like a time, I mean, you know, it's interesting. I think a lot of people that kind of came up during this time, like the internet to your point

was like a little bit long, and it still is, but it was like, there was no real guidelines, rules, regulation. People were just trying to like figure it out. You didn't really, you know, you're surfing around,

you don't really know what you're doing. I think kids were stumbling around. At what point do you realize that using this tool, you can actually start making a substantial income? So in high school, I had a customer who I had known since I was 11 or 12 years old who was paying me for web posting for three or four years now. And he said he was 35 living in London. And it finally came out my junior year of high school. He was the exact same age as me, like same year as school, but like in London, like totally pretending as well. And we're like, all right, we got to build something together. So fast forward to my freshman year of college. I call him up. We create our first startup together.

He ends up dropping out of school and comes to America for the first time, moves in with me when we were 18. So it's like that connection from like our 12 or 13 year olds, like lying in our bedrooms, but how old we are became like a tangible business in the US. So that was pretty wild. Is this something that you're just naturally good at? Like, were you, were you actually like doing the coding and stuff? I was initially, but this guy is way better than me. He works at Google now. He's like an absolute beast. And yeah, he was like way better than me at coding. So I'm like, Hey, come like take over and take me to the side and like build this thing for us. So you've essentially been starting businesses since you were 10 years old. For sure. I think the internet was cool because you could just meet people that

I wasn't able to meet. If I'm 13 years old in a New Jersey suburb, I wasn't meeting some crazy programmer from London, right? But the internet let me do that. So it's a really fun way to just find different things that I couldn't access in my life. So what do you think? Okay, so obviously, we're going to talk about FHIR and then what you're working on now, but you said this all happens in a four month period. What was the motivation? Cause it sounds like you had the music app and then you were doing the festival as kind of like, was it a promo thing or was it, you wanted to get into the live event space?

Like how did, I guess what I'm trying to get at is how does this four-month period that derailed your life in a lot of ways, one, take off so quickly? And then two, how does this all unravel? So someone I'm working with now is doing due diligence on me. And they called a woman who I used to know in the four months leading up to Fyre Festival, who was basically talent that was there for some of the promo shoots. And they're like, oh, how is Billy as a guy? And like, she's like, yeah, things were great, except I knew it wasn't gonna work when he told me he'd only been to one music festival

in his entire life before Fyre. So it's like, I was not a music festival guy by any stretch of the imagination, which I think is like kind of wacky. I was a tech guy and I built an app that was trying to be like the Uber for talent where anybody can book artists. And I was using like my love for the Bahamas and the ocean and travel to as a sales tool to bring all these talent and

be like, Hey, look, like here's why you should sign for my company and not some other agency. And it was on one of these trips. I had a high school friend who goes, you should do a music festival here. So it wasn't my idea. It wasn't any of my employees ideas. It was like a random high school buddy who was like, yeah, this place is incredible for a music festival. Okay. You go in with just blind ambition, no prior experience. You start, I mean, we have to talk about, you start working with Ja Rule and you get a lot of celebrities. Like, how do you even begin to start approaching these people and get them to sign on with, you know, I guess, lack of experience? Yeah. I think the biggest misconception and like this, what bothers me the most,

that people think I woke up one day, started lying, and I did lie, and it was terrible. And all of a sudden, it tracked all this money and islands and talent, whatever you want to call it. It took so many years of having small failures and small successes to build this trust up, which I violated. And arguably, I think that's even worse.

But it was moving to New York as an 18, 19 year old entrepreneur when all of my peers were in college, starting businesses and just like finding myself in these crazy rooms and crazy scenarios that allowed these four months of fire, which have been told many times now to happen. How did you like approach Ja Rule

and have him like, are you like texting his agent? Like how does that even happen? So I had a company called Magnesis that was building good experiences and benefits on top of your credit card. So our pitch was the Amex Black Card for young millennials in New York City. And for that card, we were doing private concerts for all of our customers. So I had booked maybe two dozen smaller rappers to perform at these private concerts. And during this, I realized how broken this booking process was.

You guys know this world where you speak to somebody who claims to be your manager, but it's really the cousin of the guy's brother who knows your PR person. It's like a whole crazy, opaque world that makes no sense. And I'm sitting here after booking two dozen people. I'm like, dude, I can just build an app that removes all these fakers throughout the process and allow people like me to contact these artists directly. So that was the impetus of it. And I had most of my talent relations at the time through these magnesis events, which had gone well on a much, much smaller scale, obviously. What's interesting to me is you sound like a behind the scenes type of guy. You sound like you like being behind the app and building the app,

not necessarily in front of it. Is that true or no? Yeah. I think the issue, which there's plenty of bad decisions I made during FIRE, but kind of got lost in the excitement of the islands and the airplanes and trying to do a music festival on one of the most beautiful places on earth. I was a 24-year-old. I was year old, I was chasing after the shining objects and, you know, it led me astray. At what point when you're planning all of this, do you start to think, hey, maybe this is going to go astray or was there never that moment? There was never like that moment where like, I'm not, it's not going to work, but it was a total roller coaster of really bad and really good. And I just remember the moment

where we launched, we had like 18 of the bigger talent on the island. We had them all post as orange tile at the same time, like physically with us. And then hundreds around the world posted it right after them. And nothing happened for the first four or five hours. And like, I'd put every dollar I had into this like launch moment.

And this was for people to go and sign up and buy tickets? To buy tickets. Fuck, no one wants to go to this thing. And I went to bed all depressed, thinking like I'm now broke and like having a festival and I'm stuck on this island. Like how am I going to pay everybody $2 million like next week?

And then I'm like, my guy comes to my door, wakes me up at 7 a.m. Pelly, Pelly, we were screwed. I'm like, shit, we sold no tickets. Like, dude, we sold millions of dollars of tickets. Like, how are we ever going to build this thing? So it went from like,

we're totally screwed. We have nothing to, oh shit, we've sold so much. How can we actually make this happen? And I think like that was pretty indicative of the emotions the entire time, where it's always the extremes. But there was never like a time

where you could step back and be like, oh shit, like this probably isn't actually going to work. It was more like the extreme emotional thinking. So when you sell all these tickets in the morning, how do you even start planning? Like what do you do? I mean, that's a lot of pressure. Yeah. So we were on a small island in the middle of nowhere in the ocean. So I tried to three or four-

Where exactly is the island? At this point, we're on Norman's Key, which is in the Exumas in the Bahamas. The population there might be at the time eight people who actually live there full time. So we fly to the main capital island, Nassau. I go into the private airport hangar. I'm like, all right, everybody has to wait six hours. I just start making phone calls and have everybody come. And I'm like, where can we do this thing? Where can we go? And just start renting islands and striking deals from the airport in Nassau. And we have four months to put a festival together. And that just started a chain of

events, which were totally wild. How much is it to rent an island? Oh, crazy. It was really bad. Probably spent a couple million dollars total on like rentals for four months, if not more. So it's like, it's millions of dollars to rent an island. To rent an island, yeah. So then you get the money, then you get committed because you spent the money. And now you're sitting there like,

okay, I got to get all these people here. At this point, it was game on. We'd sold these tickets. We have every brand blowing up our phone. We had all the talent who had told us we were crazy six months ago. Now, like we just wanted to come to the Bahamas for the fire app saying, oh, like forget the app. Want to be part of the festival. Like, you know, we were in my own little world and top of the world at that point. So no longer became at the dollars or cents. It's like, how can we make this three days that the entire world will talk about for the rest of their lives?

It became this one track mindset. It sounds like your intentions were like to have a really incredible festival. But totally naive, like just couldn't zoom out and be like, wait a second, you can't build a city here in four months. It doesn't matter if I had a billion dollars, which I did not have.

Like, it doesn't matter if I was the best builder in the world, I've never built anything. It's like, you just can't possibly do this and just didn't know how to understand that. When talent and people start showing up and it's not built the way, do you have a moment where you start to say, oh shit, this is going to be a disaster?

That really never happened. I think a lot of people in hindsight are like, oh, I knew on this trip. I think that's all bullshit. We had enough little things going for us, like enough villas that actually existed there that we were renting out, like enough physical assets that were actually ours that were so good. And we were amazing at the best, like the 100-person festivals that we did every

couple of weeks leading up to it. Every single one of those is perfect. We just didn't have the expertise or I didn't have the expertise to do it with 3,000 people at the time. And when you're planning this, when people start arriving, are you freaking out as they arrive or were you still not, were you fine? Yeah. Like for the first time, I thought I was screwed in my entire life was the night before the festival was supposed to start. And the storm came through out of nowhere. And like, I had probably like 10 or 12 core, like actual festival people who were building the festival site, who were all super energetic, experienced, nothing's going to stop us type of people. And I come into our main war room,

and all their heads are down in the kitchen sinks and the tables are passed out on the couches. I'm like, fuck, I just lost everybody. And that was when I knew we were screwed, but it literally was not until the night before. And this is at midnight. And there was no way to stop people from coming at this point? So we chartered two 737, like this point? So we chartered two 737 planes, set up a fire terminal, Miami International Airport, and had these planes scheduled to go back and forth all day long for four days, two weekends in a row. So they started to arrive at sunrise. So at 7.30 that morning, the first 737, which was branded with a fire logo on it, we had girls in bikinis stenciled

on the plane. It was absurd. So at 7.30 in the morning, the first plane arrives. And I'm like, all right, we're still going to pull this off. But I made the final decision there that crushed it. I'm like, okay, our festival site is not ready yet. So let's send them to a beach on the other side of the island, bring all the booze, the boats, the jet skis, give them a great time, and give us all day to build the festival site. And by the time they came back, it was pitch black. They were wasted. We weren't ready. And it's like chaos just erupted. What happens when the chaos erupts? It's been a while since I've seen the documentary, but I remember it was just like absolute pandemonium and people posting. What was that like being there and experiencing all of that?

So I think I should have realized when the top 10 or 12 management level people who were all incredible, when they gave up, physically and mentally gave up, I should have realized I was screwed. On your team. Yeah. They didn't verbalize it, but it was pretty clear by their body language. They realized that their whole dream of making this happen was dead in the night before. And at that point is when I should have called it quits because I just felt like, where did everybody go? I have 700 people working here at this moment, like a lot of contractors and whatever underneath these 10 or 12. I'm like, I can't find anybody. And I could find like two people who work there. Where'd they go? I don't know. And it's like, it speaks to my bad management ability at the time. And like,

clearly the 10 or 12 leaders were out of it. But I just felt like I was alone on this like what a milk crate or milk carton trying to direct traffic and everybody was gone. Where the fuck is everybody? Are you staying up all night like the night before? Are you awake all night? Yeah, for sure. It was a mess.

And how many days are you awake for? Because I mean, how do you go to bed? Yeah, I think it was like two or three days where it was just pure mayhem. Oh my God. You remember the sandwiches, Lauren? What happened with the sandwiches? Remember those people that... Why were the sandwiches like such a thing? For

someone who's listening that has no context, why? Yeah, the food actually wasn't bad. Like the food was totally, it wasn't five stars advertised, but the food was like definitely pretty good. And the story is that two kids were high and went up to Andy King and said, hey man, all I want is a cheese sandwich. So he made that like those two guys a cheese sandwich. And my number one response here is if we served, I think there's like a thousand people there, a thousand cheese sandwiches, it'd be more than one picture, right?

Like everybody would take a picture. So you're saying that cheese sandwich basically just got a lot of press. It was a one off. Yeah, it was like literally two guys asked for it and he made it for them. When you're actually in it and how you've seen it portrayed on social media, were there a lot of things that were inaccurate?

I never watched documentaries. I think like… Never once? No, never once. I think the crux of it was wrong. Like, I think morally the biggest crime were these people who were backing me since I was 18 or 19 years old, who I took advantage of in the four months leading up to Fyre Festival. And like, that's fucked up. I think as far as the actual event, like, we all busted our asses to make this thing work and anybody who's working the festival no one thought like it wasn't going to work beforehand. Like afterwards they can say it to make themselves look smart but everybody working there thought this thing was going to happen. So I think the crime was more

about like the abuse trust and not the actual festival itself. And remind me what were you actually charged and convicted of? So wire fraud for lying to investors to raise money in the months leading up to the festival. Is that when you say you weren't out of integrity before the four months leading up to the festival, how were you out of integrity? Like explain it to someone who doesn't understand. So we just became desperate or I became desperate for the money to make the festival work. Is that what wire fraud is? Is to just you just like raise money off false pretenses?

Yeah. So like wire fraud is super, super broad. It's like, hey, you know, if I tell you my apartment's worth a million bucks, you know, give me a loan against it and it's not worth that. And you give me money like that's wire fraud. So like any exaggeration about like something's value or something's worth to get money is like technically wire fraud. So yeah, I lied to the investors about how well the company was doing. And like,

it was really bad. And, you know, I was saying we had more revenue than we did, blah, blah, blah. Cause I was desperate for the cash. It's like, that was a true crime, but the money was spent legitimately trying to execute the festival. And like, that was pure stupidness on my part, not to zoom out and be like, shit, this is not going to work. So it sounds like you made this kind of like public promise to do this festival. And then you realize it starts to get away from you and you got desperate to make it happen. And so you needed to bring in the cash. And so I think what you're saying is you exaggerated to the investors to bring that money in. But your intention was still then to use the money

and pull off a successful festival. Absolutely. How much money did you raise? It's like $27 or $28 million-ish. You know what, though? That's a lot of money to raise at 24 years old. To me, that's impressive that you raised that much money. I mean, what was your strategy with that? I was just, it was trust.

That's why it's so fucked up. It's because these people, some of the investors were new, but a lot of them had backed me for five or six years. So when I call them and say, hey, listen, guys, this company is bigger than the previous ones we're working on, who are they to question me? Because they had seen me be honest and fail and succeed in little ways for so long. And are these celebrities well known people or are these people that are behind the scenes in business? More so in the business side. We did have some more celebrity type investors as well, but most of them were traditional technology, venture capital, VC type investors.

Are the investors calling you when the festival is going on being like, I'm watching this on social media and it looks like a disaster? Or did they not even know anything was going on? The hardest part to handle as a festival is failing where all the investors were, of course, calling, and every single one had different directions and different feedback. And it's like, how do you handle 20 really, really smart people who are all great in their own ways,

telling me complete opposite things? And that was so challenging, because I was trying to deal with 1,000 people to get them home, X number of hundreds of contractors who were there. And now a couple dozen investors all telling me like, do this, don't do this, don't do this. And I do one thing that one says and someone else yells at me. And it's like trying to learn how to deal with that

is wasn't prepared for it. What were they all telling you? Like what was some of the direction? I mean, the smart ones are saying, shut the fuck up, like get everybody home safe and like say nothing. And other ones are giving me complete opposite feedback. Like that you need to make a statement? Yeah. Go on all the media, start selling tickets for next year. We want our money back. I've heard every possible piece of advice you can imagine. And then it really hit me the next morning, this one investor who I really respect at the time, just calls me and says, you have to do this or else you're going to be in the cover of Wall Street Journal in handcuffs. I'm like, I didn't fathom what I had done was a crime.

It was so obviously a crime looking back now. I deserve to go to jail. I did break the law, but I just couldn't comprehend it. And he's like, you're going to be in handcuffs in the front page of the newspaper unless you do X, Y, and Z. What did he tell you to do? Basically give him his money back. But at that point- I didn't have it, yeah.

Are you turning your phone off after this? No, I didn't know what to do. I thought I could work myself out of the problem. So I was talking to everybody, trying to get feedback and come up with ideas. And it was all stupid. And if I had to do it again, I would sit down, shut up, get everybody off, say nothing, and plead guilty as quickly as possible and get out of my life. AG1.

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My energy's better. I don't have any allergies. I just all around feel like I'm making a much better choice for myself and our family. It's such an easy change to make. Just listen to the episode we did with the founder on this podcast, and you'll learn all sorts of reasons why. And the great thing about Branch Basics is it can be used to clean your floors, do your laundry, your bathrooms, but it's also safe enough to wash with your produce and everything else. It really is an extremely clean product. Their premium starter kit will provide you with all the bottles you need to replace all of your toxic cleaning products. So check them out today and definitely check out the episode that we did with the founder of Branch Basics on this show.

Save 15% and get free shipping when you use code SKINNY at www.branchbasics.com. Again, that is code SKINNY for 15% off plus free shipping when you purchase starter kits. That's branchbasics.com, promo code skinny. I truly have the hack to getting your baby to sleep through the night. I know this because I've been using this hack since Townes was born and it is an absolute game changer. I wish I had this when Zaza was a baby. It really would have changed my life. Dreamland Baby. They have the Dream Weighted Sleep Sack, and let me tell you, it is so amazing. This sleep sack makes a lot of sense to me. It's lightly weighted, and I use a lightly weighted blanket when I'm winding down. So knowing that there's a lightly

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That's SKINNYBONGO23 at checkout. And this is a buy one, get one free weighted product steal. This is a great way to stock up on Dreamland baby products or give it as a holiday gift. That's SKINNYBO, 23 at checkout. What's it like to be riding that high and having that momentum and success in business and then get to the moment where you're about to, in your mind, pull off this successful festival to the next day nightmare scenario of being charged with a crime, having the world and your investors kind of turn against you. What's going through your mind personally at that time? I think what was so weird was that I was running these businesses and had all these employees and

all these people calling me, then all these investors I'm reporting to, and then news breaks, I'm getting charged with a crime and no one calls me. My phone goes completely silent. So it went from constant stresses where I'm scared to check my phone every 30 seconds to now my phone is completely dead. How quickly after do you get charged? The investigation started right after I came back to the US. And so it went from I'm in the middle of a shitstorm to then my phone, I couldn't pay someone to pick up my phone call. Do you have a girlfriend or a partner or anyone at this time helping you through this,

or is it just you on your own? At this point, it's just kind of, you know, no one's serious at that point, no. Okay. And so did you have someone within the company that you worked with helping you like really by your side or was it really just falling all on you? It really went from like, I felt like I had a hundred super close friends to like zero overnight. And yeah. Why do you think so many people turn to you just because they found out that you lied and they were obviously disappointed? I think people just get really, I'm so scared of the government now. Like, you know, I would laugh if you told me to be scared of them seven years, they would have laughed at you. But like now I'm scared. And I think that people are just scared. And even if you're totally innocent,

like it's expensive to defend yourself, whether it's civilly or criminally. Just being involved in legal action is just not cheap and it's scary. And if you are in the midst of that, and at that point, I was a lightning rod, whether it was getting lawsuits from everybody or criminal actions, no one wants to be associated with someone who's just kind of going through that storm. I'm like, I get it. When you say you're scared of the government, are you scared because you went to jail and saw a different side? What do you mean? Yeah, I just saw what could happen. I think I did 10 months total in solitary confinement. Wow.

I grew up in a suburb in New Jersey being taught the world is fair. And of course, I was guilty and deserved everything that came of it. But also to see that someone could snap their fingers and literally put you in a cage for 10 months, that scared me. It's like, there is someone out there who can literally go like this and your life is over. That's frightening when I didn't know that quite existed before. How are you managing your stress when you're going through all this? And what I mean by that is when you're being charged and there's people throwing lawsuits at you and you're having to go and defend yourself, how are you managing your stress levels? Because I imagine at that point, it's impossible to effectively run the businesses at all. So nobody's getting their money back. The other side of that is you're wondering every day if your freedom is

going to be taken from you. What are you doing to manage your mindset? Yeah, it sucks. And arguably, that period when things are falling apart is worse than going to jail or it's worse than actually knowing what the consequence was. So I imagine when you get to jail, it's like, okay, this is happening now. Yeah. And then you can deal with it. At least there's an end date where it's like, okay, like it's going to be absolutely miserable. But you know, in this year I can at least go home and still be semi-young and like have a life. But not knowing is like certainly the hardest part. At what point do you think that jail's an actual possibility? Like did you, when you were going through this, did you ever think that you were actually going to see the inside of a jail cell? Or were you thinking, hey,

you go through here and you're slapped on the wrist? So I hired a lawyer. And then he's like, all right, let me see what the situation is. And then he calls me in a week later. He's like, Bill, you're going to jail. So he's like, yeah. I talked to the government and they have you. And I was totally guilty. And he's like, you're going to jail. Are you at home when he calls you and says that? No. Yeah, I go to his office. I'm in his office. And he's like, you're going to do. Are you at home when he calls you in? No, I mean, yeah, I go to his office. I'm like, I'm in his office. And he's like, you're going to do some years in jail. And how do you receive that news?

He's like, he calls me and he's like, Billy, you should call your family. Like, you're going to be going to jail. And this is, this is like maybe like nine months before we actually go. So, but I mean, like when, when you get that news, what's your reaction? I would say, oh, like why so long? And then like, you'd explain to me because of the dollar amount, you get certain timelines based on how much money you lose, blah, blah, blah. And like, I'm trying to argue it and like still trying to fight back and not fully accepting the reality of it. He's like, oh, I only lost this much, not this much. And you know, my mindset was totally wrong. It was like, yes, you were guilty and like, shut the fuck up. You're going to go to jail, but it's going to end. And like, I wish I knew to just like, just chill out.

There's a total of six years, right? I was sentenced to six to six years served just over four what did your parents say when you called them and told them this news I think the biggest thing I learned from jail is the sentence is way harder on like your family and friends because when you're going through something like at least you know what's happening in real time but when you're not there and you can't see what's happening your mind just goes to like the worst places so i just felt the worst for all family and friends and i'm sure when you're inside your parents are extremely worried for you as well yeah they're scared and they just don't know what's happening right like you hear prison you're just like that's fucking awful what's going on like what's

he doing like is he alive and it's just it's a tough time why did you have to go into solitary is this non-violent crime, right? I went twice. I went first time for three months, second time for seven months. The first time I was trying to write a book and I had like a USB recording device. So totally broke the rules and deserved it. Went to solitary for three months.

The second time I tried doing a podcast interview over like the jail payphone and that was not a good idea. They caught you. Yeah, they don't like that. Are you not allowed to do that? No, you are. But like, it's kind of like the weird thing where it's like not against the rules. Like you still have, even in jail, you still have your first amendment rights. So I didn't really break any rules, but they weren't really sure what to do. So they just put me in

solitary for seven months. And that was brutal because they were like, fuck with me mentally. I'm like, Billy, you're not getting out of here. You're doing 10, 10 years in solitary confinement, 20 years. They would just fuck with me. And I had no phone calls, like no way to access the outside world. I was like going crazy. Like, fuck, am I literally going to be in this box for 10 years for doing a damn interview? They fuck with you on top of it?

Yeah, so that was the hardest part. That is twisted to say that. I mean, that's mean. That's cruel. It's crazy. So were you even allowed to read? You're allowed two books a week. And it sounds like a lot for a normal person.

But when you have absolutely nothing else to do, even if you're a slow reader, you read a book a day. Because literally 24-7, you're locked in a cage. So I never understood that. Why can't we have more books? But it wasn't the fight I was able to pick at the time. Growing up, nice kid in New Jersey, your first day going in, what's that experience like? I imagine you're terrified. Yeah. I think I just didn't, once again, didn't respect the prison etiquette initially. Prison

is very, very behind racially, socially than the world is. It's probably 50 or 60 years behind. And then growing up as an adult in Manhattan, it's probably a hundred years behind like New York city. So not understanding that, like, there are these like weird social norms that you have to conform to. Like what? It took like, I mean, everything is just super fucking racist. And like, if I went and talked with a non-white person, the white guys would get mad and like cause drama over it. And like, you know, it's like, it's like as simple as that and causing drama and like trying to explain to them like well i get along better with you know a 25 year old black kid from brooklyn than a 60 year old like guy with a swastika on his forehead so it's like why do i have to sit with this guy when i prefer to sit with this guy

and like i just didn't understand like how to and what happens if you kind of step outside those bounds they check you pretty quick i guess i was like too like i wouldn't say confident but too like why can't i like why can't i talk with a guy I'd rather hang out with than someone like you? I'm like, try to fight back or push back a little bit. And like, it took a couple months to realize like at some point it's got to stop causing, stop causing drama along the way. And do you ever fear for your wellbeing in there? There was like a couple of times early on, I was in the Brooklyn detention center,

which is pretty rough where like, you know, some guys would threaten stuff and like, yeah, but it all ended up working out and nothing ever terrible happened. But saw, you know, saw someone or like guy in the cell next to me got raped and like saw many people get stabbed. Someone commits suicides. Like it was bad. Like there was things happening.

So how do you stay out of all that? Like, especially when you're doing as much time as you did. The biggest thing, it's all about money in jail. And a lot of people get in trouble because they owe people money. And most of the bills come from drugs. And I've never been a drug person, like never done hard drugs in my entire life.

But a lot of guys come in there, they're super depressed and they start doing hard drugs and racking up debts to others. And when they can't pay those bills when the drama comes. So you stayed away, like ultimately from the drugs

and the gang situations, no one's going to bother you because people are in there to do their gang stuff and make money from the drugs. And were you recruited to be in a gang when you were in there? No. And I think that's a misconception a little bit too, is you don't have to join a gang. And generally, you hang out with people from your same area. So there's New York guys, there's Philadelphia guys, whatever. So you'll hang out with the guys from your certain area.

You're not in a gang, but no one really bothers each other unless you're owing money or trying to get into like, if you're dealing drugs, people get mad. But if you stay out of that whole business, like no one really cares. What was the most or who was the most interesting person that you met in jail? There's got to be like a person. So many. Yeah, I bet. So I think the biggest shock was, you know, we're taught in life, there are good guys and bad guys. And I get into jail and I think that like, there's such a small percentage of the population. It's actually bad people. I'm like, sure. Maybe 5% of the guys in jail are like actual terrible human beings who should never get let out. The rest are just like somewhere else on the same spectrum that the rest of the world is. And,

you know, due to circumstance, due to desperation, they committed a crime that somebody else might have too, if they were put in that same spot. So I think like that was eye opening. Yeah. I had a friend from Chicago who at 19, he robbed a Walgreens. And since it was a pharmacy, it was a federal crime. And he got like 10 years in jail. And the sweetest kid in the world, super nice, super talented.

And just got out now at like 28. So lost his 20s from robbing, I think he got like $140 or something, which is just absurd. And felt so bad for him, but an amazing, amazing human being. Because you're famous for all of this and you're in jail, was there a scarlet letter on your back because of that? Or was it like glitzy and glam to be famous in prison? I think it's tough knowing that at the end of the day, like people are after themselves and

their own careers. Right. So I think it's pretty obvious that like, if you got me in trouble, you know, it's, you're going to get a bigger star on your, on your like, on your desk. And if you get somebody else in trouble who is in jail for 30 years and like has no family, has no friends. Right. So it did feel like I was a little bit of a target and like, that sucks. It just like sucks knowing that. Cause you're saying like maybe the government had to make an example of you because it was so public. I think like once I'm in jail though though, even on like a micro level, right? Like, hey, if a guard catches me doing something wrong, I'm sure I'll get a pat on the

back type of thing. Like I certainly felt like I was being targeted in situations like that, where they would, you know, come and try to catch me doing like stupid things. So that was frustrating. This is a weird question, but I just want to know, I'm obsessed with jail. I find it to be so interesting. If someone was going to jail, what advice would you tell them? Most people who commit financial crimes will go to what's called a camp, which is an insecurity place.

Well, that's why I'm so surprised where you went. I started there. And that's where I had the USB device and got in trouble. In reality there, it's just like boredom and separation from your family are the two biggest enemies. And you're not seeing any of the gang stuff,

any of the violence. It was due to my stupidity that I was escalated levels and exposed to different jails. And you went to Detroit. My last jail was in Milan, Michigan, which is outside of Detroit. Okay.

And yeah. So if someone was going to jail, what would you tell them? I think they'll probably meet three or four great friends. That's the silver lining of it. Yeah, I think you definitely form a certain bond with people who go through a crazy experience together.

But there also are like truly bad people too that you just like don't know existed in the world. And for example, there were tons of these like child molesters. And I would sit there in these rooms and be like, if you offer me my freedom right now, I cannot go out in the world and find 20 of these guys. And like somehow there's hundreds of them right here. So it's like, it is kind of like a crazy experience.

When you are in jail, is that when the documentary came out? Yes, I was in jail when they came out. And did you see the press surrounding it from jail or no? So people watch TMZ religiously in jail. That is the must watch TV every day. I think it's a way to connect with the world. So I was walking by the TV room, and I saw my fat face pop up on TMZ.

People saying like, they're- Yeah, they're like, look, I turn around, it's like dueling documentaries. I'm like, oh, fuck. What do you mean you're fat face? You're thin. I was so fat during this fire time. I was super fat.

How did you lose weight? I think once I got back to New York and the investigation stopped, and I stopped going to four dinners a night. I imagine the stress too. Yeah, the stress too, for sure. So when you get out of jail, what is that day like? So I was sentenced to five months in the halfway house after jail, which is basically a jail that

you can leave. And that was in Brooklyn. I just remember my parents picked me up in a rental car in Milan, Michigan. They give me a Timberland wallet with $200 and 20s can leave. And that was in Brooklyn. I just remember my parents picked me up in a rental car in Milan, Michigan. They give me a Timberland wallet with $200 and 20s in it. And they're like, good luck. I'm like, well, it's probably not going to buy me a pair of jeans or whatever. So I go to the halfway house and like, just get to work and try to get back to life.

And what's that transition like? It's so much harder than people think. And I thought, like, I thought I would run out of jail. And then everybody who had believed in me before would like call me or like meet with me. And the reality was like, no one would pick up the phone. And it probably took like six months.

I mean, some people picked up the phone, but it probably took like six months to get back to a place where I can actually like have real relationships again. So that was hard. It's interesting. We've, I've talked to people that have done stints in prison or in jail and they say in some ways like a lot of the day-to-day stress of life kind of goes away while you're in there because you can't like you're not running a company you're not paying bills you don't have a mortgage you know did you experience any of that while you were there I think when you're in jail you glamorize outside

life so much where you just remember the best moments yeah moments with Moments with the friends and your family and like, you know, that great birthday dinner you had and like whatever exciting like life moments you had. And you forget about the bad stuff. And it's like your body's way of protecting you and like keeping you going. Right. So I think a lot of people are surprised by, you know, the reality of life. I think for me, just the hardest part was like the community I was in was not OK with like having a friend who went to jail. So it's kind of like getting back to life was, I was more prepared for like the stress of like life and like less prepared for like, fuck, these hundred people who I thought would be like running to me aren't picking up my phone call.

Did anybody come back? Yeah, I had like four or five friends who were like, who I probably didn't expect to step up, really, really stepped up and helped me right away and forever grateful to them. But that part was definitely tough. If I'm you, I wouldn't want those friends, though, in my life moving forward anyway. For sure. With all you've been through and they don't want to talk to you, it's kind of like, bye. Yeah. But it's hard. I've had friends get shit at work, right? They'll work at a big tech company or at a big bank or at a law firm.

Like, oh, why are we them? So it's still tough. And it's not necessarily their thoughts. It's like the social pressure they get to. And that just sucks. And I feel bad for those people. There has to be, though, some kind of road to getting better, to redemption. Yeah, there has to be some kind of road to getting better, to redemption. Yeah, there has to be some kind of road. I mean,

I think that it's unfair to just put you in a box forever. I don't think that's fair. Yeah, thank you. I think what's sad too is a lot of really capable people who go to jail, they just give up, right? And they don't try to do anything with their lives after. And they kind of just sit at homes and play video games all day long. They're like, oh, well, the world's against me. And I think that mindset's terrible. But I can see why that happens now, because it is tough. And it did take so much longer than I thought

to get back to some sense of reality. You know, one of the reasons we wanted to have you on here is I think for this part, which is you have this experience, you have this failure that ends with your incarceration. And then now you're from what i'm seeing you're you're back on the horse again and i guess what we're wondering is like you're doing this you're doing fire festival too so i can't i can't tell if this is like one of the

dumbest things or if you have some of the biggest balls in the world or like the motivation to go back is this to kind of prove to yourself that you can do what you set out to do the first time? Or why go back to this again after everything? I'm obsessed with paying people back. And that is not just financially. And yes, it's a big part of it. But I think the other part of it is rebuilding trust. I think there's so much in me where I want to be like, hey, yes, I was totally an asshole for this period of time. And I was totally wrong. But I'm not that bad guy. I'm the guy who you initially believed in. And I want to prove that I'm still that person. And that's why I want to do Fyre

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So how do you even begin to start? Okay, say that I'm an investor. And you come to to start? Okay, say that I'm an investor. Sure. And you come to me. Pitch him, pitch him. I want to hear what you pitch because, damn, $27 million. I know, it's crazy. It's a shitload of money, man. Because if you come to me and say, hey, I have an idea for Fyre Festival 2 and I need to raise money and I'm just a basic guy.

Let me Google and see what happened with Fyre Festival 1. I would think that the chips are a little bit stacked against you i disagree you know what billy i disagree i want to start the fight i think that he has so much to prove but i'm just wondering how he i i think he's gonna have this moment where he proves everyone wrong i really do well i hope. He spent so much time thinking and being quiet in jail and strategizing and planning. I actually think that he's going to pull it off. It looks like you are, but I'm wondering how you even start approaching people with, hey, I'm doing this thing again after the first experience. It's a great question. Everybody asks that question, which I love. And I think since 2016, Fyre has been the most talked about festival

in the world. Coachella is in second place and it's like three and a half times as many mentions and appearances that Coachella has had since then. And I was talking to some big festival company. I'm like, what would you have to do to start a festival next year and get the awareness of Fyre? It took spending $28 million, committing crimes, going to jail, having multiple documentaries. It was almost this perfect storm that was needed to create this brand awareness. So if a professional can come in and actually do it right, you don't have to worry about any of that brand awareness. It would cost you so much money and so much time otherwise. So I think that's the opportunity. It was crazy.

People know about it. So if it's done right- I'm sold, Billy. It's good. I'll be an investor. Thank you. Let's go. Are we going to fire festival too? You guys are definitely coming. I'm sold. I'm honestly sold. I think that you, you're, you're smart. You have a lot to prove. You, you want to do the right thing. And I think you're going to do it. Well, it sounds like people wanted this thing to be a success from the beginning. Obviously,

didn't get all these people to sign up and all these artists to participate. They believed in the vision. It's just the execution of it was not up to par. Yeah. The execution was terrible. The line of investors was terrible. But if I can separate myself from that and have a professional company do the logistics, have someone manage the money, then we have a really, really great chance to make a good story. You know what I would do? I would have it all set up. Say it's on Friday. I would have it all set up on Monday. So you can just feel really good about it. And then you can go and show on social media that the infrastructure is already

set up and you can feel good about it. I think where you got in trouble in one of the instances is like, it sounds like a lot got procrastinated until the very last second. So you were like, fuck, what do I do? And that's where the scrambling happened. If I would set it all up so you're just chill that week. Yeah, I like that. I don't know if that's like way more money. You might need a couple more investors to have it set up that long. But then you're like, you can have like actually enjoy it and savor it. And sleep that before. Yes. I have a personal question.

Sure. So a lot of people that listen to this show, you know, they've experienced failures and we all experience failures. But I think getting back up and continuing to try is the thing that in the end will make people either win or lose, right? If you don't, I believe you don't really fail

unless you just quit trying. Having the experience that you had and crashing and burning as hard as you did, and you didn't just lose a business. You lost your freedom. How do you get back on the horse, per se? How do you start to say, okay, I'm going to take another swing at this? I think the pessimistic view here, I think that small failures are really good for you. I think that huge failures are actually devastating. And I think the reality is most people can't come back from huge failures. And I saw it with a lot of capable guys in jail who just can't recover from it. And it's really, really sad. And you would classify yours as a huge failure.

I do. I think it's super hard to come back from. I think all the little failures I had leading up to that were very, very beneficial. And this one probably wasn't. But at the end of the day, I think there's so many times after we failed and we want to get back started again, we predict problems, right? Oh, well, if we start doing well in six months, this is going to happen. Well, in nine months, this is going to happen. In 12 months, this is going to happen. In reality, almost all those problems end up sorting themselves if you just take action. So I think don't think about what problems you might have in the future. Just start going now and those problems will most likely disappear disappear and how do you block out noise from

the naysayers and for people because you know I we're researching you read the comments and people you know there's a lot of people saying a lot of nasty shit obviously because they have the perspective of the of the documentary but how do you kind of block out that noise and set out to prove those people wrong interesting I think it's kind of like if you walk in light rain, you're getting mad when a little drop hits you, right? But if you go swimming in the ocean, you just forget you're wet. So at a certain point, there's just so much shit that I stopped paying attention to the bulk of it. So in a weird way, once you have nothing to lose, now it becomes more stress-free. I think that everyone, when it comes to online personalities, sometimes they build you up so high and then they tear you down. But I also think that people want to see an underdog win.

And I think the internet, when you do Fire 2 and you do it right, is going to surround him with positivity. I'm going to just put that out there. Well, no, I think it's good that you're doing these kind of shows because I think it gives people a much different perspective. Yeah. When I hear your story, I'm like, okay, here was a young guy, very ambitious, that set out to try to create a great experience for people, but fell short on the delivery and also was out of integrity a bit.

But I don't look at you like, man, this guy was out to rob people and he was out to steal people's money. Obviously like, obviously you're not sending all these people to an island with the intention that they're going to have a bad time. And I think it's good that you're doing these because I think it humanizes you a lot more than, you know, somebody showing you on a documentary and giving their outside perspective. Yeah. Unfortunately, the salacious stories are always better, right? Like, you know, he stole $20 million and went and partied on a yacht. Like, it's a better story than the details.

No, and listen, there's obviously a lot of issues in this country with the justice system, but I don't think anyone can listen and be like, okay, like, you made some mistakes, but six years of your life was taken from you. Like, and that happens, you know, to so many people, and they take much more time from a lot of people, and it's, you know and it's an injustice.

But I think people listening to this and saying, okay, he fucked up this festival, but you paid a really heavy price. It's hard. And there are some days where you're depressed about the number and then I go and meet someone who has 30 years and never hurt anybody. And it's like, wow, I'm really grateful. So it's kind of like some days are great, some days are terrible. It's just hard to get there.

I don't think people can contextualize. I mean, even when we were talking off air and you said, hey, you missed basically all of COVID and New York for six years and you get out and things are just totally different. Yeah, I don't think people realize. Does it really feel different? New York's dangerous now. What do you mean?

It's weird. We've been coming here for the last five years all the time, so I don't know what you mean. What do you mean? It's weird. Like when people, we've been coming here for the last like five years, like all the time. So I don't know what you mean. Like, what do you mean? I think like New York, you know, you would never think twice about walking down any street in Manhattan late at night, six years ago. And like, now you do. And I was almost mugged one night. Like some guy jumped out from behind the car to try to mug me. And like, I've seen other guys, like having been in jail, I know what like the Jack boys look like now. I saw a couple of groups who are like looking for their big, like looking for their targets. been in jail, I know what the Jack boys look like now. I saw a couple of groups who are looking for their targets. Like, wow, this is like, the city has totally changed.

So yeah, it's gotten more intercepted COVID. Lauren's oblivious to all that, which is- I'm a little oblivious. But what do you want me to do? My content guy here, he got mugged a handful of months ago too with his camera stolen. Oh my God, that's scary. Yeah, Lauren, It could be scary.

Lauren's like walking around la-di-da. I'm like, hi, how you doing? It used to be like that. It's like legitimately changed now. It's like this dark alley looks nice. Let's go down this one. What's cool now is the outdoor dining. So all the restaurants got like the outdoor permits during COVID. Yeah. And they just all stayed. Yeah, that is cool. The summer was great. So like every restaurant that used to only be inside now had people outside all summer long. So that was like create a kind a fun vibe. Have you had good experience going out in New York City and being in public? Have people been embracing you?

95% positive. I think people in general in New York are so caught up in their own bullshit where if they don't like you, they're not going to even entertain the thought of talking to you like, oh, they're too cool to acknowledge you. And then once you do say something, you're two are supportive so yeah that's good just a new york mentality when do you think that you're going to do fire two end of next year end of next year so 14 months versus four so we better get this right what are you doing differently this time i want to know all the things you're doing differently like having a real festival company do all the work so i will not be doing logistics And I think my job here is to tell a really good story

and to help craft it. So it's three days that you talk about forever. Like if I can do that, I win. And I should not be setting up stages, building bathrooms, building tents, like let somebody else do all of that, please. What does the day-to-day right now look like for an event at the end of next year?

I think right now it's just getting the best partners on board for everything, whether it's a festival, whether it's for a documentary. We're also working on a fire Broadway musical with a totally separate partnership, which I think is going to be fucking wild. And the guys doing it are so smart and creative. I want to go see that. Yeah, I think that's going to be absolutely insane. It just takes time to get on Broadway.

It takes a couple of years, but they're crazy. I think you have patience. I bet you learned a lot of patience. Yeah, a lot of patience. A lot of long nights alone in a bunker. Yeah, you have time to think. You have space. How many people have already bought tickets?

Or have you not opened it up yet? We've sold. We did the first 100 tickets at the end of August. Those sold out in a little over a day. And then, yeah, it's like that first drop went really, really fast. And do you know where it's going to be? I know where it's going to be, but have not said publicly yet. Okay.

Is it going to be on an island? It's going to be on an island. Yes. Oh, my God. I'm biting my tongue. Don't let me say anymore. Okay. We're rooting for you.

I'm rooting for you. You guys will be there. You know what? I like a cheese sandwich too. I like it on sourdough. Before I commit, I do want to know who the production partners are and who's doing this. Good question. I'm going to need a little more information.

He's going to prove everyone wrong. You are. I know you are. Thank you. Do you find humor in all of this? I think what my biggest dream right now is I want to go shake the hand of everybody I fucked over. And these are mostly investors.

And be like, hey, I did it. I paid you back. And not just money, but you trust me now. I somehow made up for your lost time. That'd be the coolest feeling in the world. So I want to get there. It'll take 10 years, but that'd be amazing. You're going to do it.

Yeah, thank you. You know what? That could be fun. You can use this soundbite as an ad. There you go. For Fire 2. Run it, Kino. In 10 years when they're all paid back yeah you said it here first so is that all you're working i mean not all you're working on

but is that what you're like is that your job fire festival too let's do a bunch of marketing work to keep the lights on so help like venture-backed startups just do marketing campaigns. And you're doing podcasts. I'm doing podcasts. Damn. Billy. You got a hell of a story, man. Where can everyone buy tickets? Firefestival2.com.

And we'll see you guys there. Curveball. I didn't realize we'd be pushing out Fire Festival 2. There are no tickets for sale. I saw that doc, but here we are. You can wear the website anyway. Can I help you brainstorm for creative? Yeah, please. the website anyway can I help you brainstorm for creative I have like why don't you do

like baguette like like beautiful bread yeah with like a delicious brie cheese and make cheese sandwiches like completely rebranded

like super high end yeah make like the coolest fucking cheese sandwich anyone's ever seen will you serve them yes I'll serve them in a bikini deal

yeah get me there serve Michael tickets back on sale yeah that's a good idea it's a good clever learn like let's let's talk i have some ideas podcast you know who else should um be on the billboard of this when you do a billboard what's the guy's name that you were looking at his instagram andy king the older guy yeah he's he's he's he's great okay can we get him on a billboard

saying I'm back on board? For sure. Yeah, like can we, I feel like we need to like Why are we doing this now? Can we get y'all rule back? I don't know about that, but we'll stick with Andy King.

Yeah, let's stick with Andy King on the billboards all over New York City. We can do better. Yeah, be like, I feel like you need billboards to be like, I'm back. I love it.

Or we could like take pictures of really pretty cheese sandwiches and put them all over. That's what we should do. Yes. I'm so in. It's a good idea. It's a good idea. Should the cheese sandwiches be in the billboards or more like a gorilla thing where we're just like.

I think you should do wild postings. I actually have a person if you want me to connect you. Please. Yeah, I have a great person. Okay. You should do cheese sandwiches on the wild postings. Okay you should get andy king's face on the billboards saying like something fucking cheeky and funny that everyone wants to post on their social media so you get free pr and you say we're back i love it too i love it we're just gonna get a huge

orange billboard andy king's face and some great tagline i think that you should just take everything that everyone made fun of on the internet and bring it better. How can you guys join the team? Let's go. Listen, I might've been convinced on this show. I'm telling you, I love a story. This podcast. Yeah. I mean, let me dissect the documentary and I'll DM you a couple of my ideas. Why did you never watch the documentary? They came out in jail. And I think at that time, I would have been so focused on what was true and what wasn't true. And that was the wrong response. But in hindsight, you've never wanted to go back. It's too much post-traumatic.

Now it's like my ego. It's like, I'm not watching this shit. So at some point, I will. I think after the next one goes well, I'll watch it. I don't think that he should let that negativity enter his ether on his next journey. Why even let that into his space? He's so focused on proving everyone wrong. I just think to watch that would be just bad. Well, not saying you should. I was just curious why you didn't.

Yeah. First, just to protect myself and then became a point of pride. And also, in reality, most of the real management level people didn't interview. I think if you have a real career going on that wasn't just fire, you didn't want to be associated with the failure, right? So it was mostly like ancillary people who weren't like there for most of the key moments. So I kind of felt like the true story wasn't told. And then that's something that I have. So whether it's a book or a movie or a Broadway show, like whatever it is, right, there'll be a time and place to at least tell different versions of the events. And did they ever try to get you to participate? I interviewed for the Hulu one, but I think I sat down for like nine hours

and it was chopped up to a couple minutes. And so it's like, it's tough, right? Oh my God. You sat down for nine hours? I'm not sure how long my total talking time was in the actual doc, but it could have been more than what, three, four, five minutes. And why did that older man get so famous? I forgot.

He was on the doc. Yeah, but why? What was so... I'm not going to say it. I mean, he's just a character. No, really. I don't know exactly why he got so famous. Why did he get so famous?

He was just quirky, I think. I think he was quirky. I'm not going to say it. What? Can you say it? I don't remember what he did. What did he do again? Why is everyone smiling?

We could cut it out of it. There was allegedly a shipment of Evian water held up in customs. Okay. And he said that he was going to go blow the guy to get the water released. And like, he would say, I'll do whatever it takes. So that's like, that was his moment.

He said, I'll blow the guy? Was he being funny? It was news to me when it came. All I remember is this jail guard came up to me and goes, hey, did you tell Andy King to go blow some government official? I'm like, wait, what? Oh, oh, oh, oh. What are you talking about?

He's like, you can tell me. He's saying that you said to go blow the guy. Yeah, yeah. But there was. But that's being funny. I say that all the time. Who do I have to blow to get in? I had seen him since.

I'm like, dude, what actually happened? He's like, oh, well, someone called me saying that you said that I need to go blow this guy's. It was like- You probably said, they probably said, Billy said, whoever you have to blow to get the water as a joke. Yeah, and it was taken like as a literal order. That's something I would say.

So like I- And I was cornered in jail. Like, what are you talking? Like, I didn't remember this ever happening. And now I'm like, wait, what? Oh, let me think about that. There's a slogan there. I know.

Like you gotta take that slogan. Whatever it takes. But Andy's back on board. I saw him. Yeah, Andy's back on there. I know. Like you got to take that slogan. Whatever it takes. But Andy's back on board. Yeah, Andy's back on board. I saw him doing some social promo with you. Andy's great. I can't wait to see you thrive, Billy. Thank you for coming on the show.

What's your Instagram? Pimp yourself out. P-Y-R-T Billy. Pirate Billy. Pirate Billy. I like it. Didn't want to go. Didn't want to imply a little more under the radar with this.

Straight up coming back as a pirate. That's the first mistake. It's going to crash. Thank you, Billy. Thank you, guys. Well, that was a story. I hope you guys loved this episode with Billy McFarland. And I can't wait to see what he does with fire too.

We'll have to see. Make sure you're following us on Instagram at TSC podcast. And if you want to watch any of our episodes, they are all up on YouTube. Simply search The Skinny Confidential. Enjoy.