The failed Fyre music festival, which landed creator Billy McFarland in jail, is back in the news after Hulu and Netflix released competing documentaries in the same week.
The failed Fyre music festival, which left thousands of millennials stranded in the Bahamas and its creator sentenced to jail for six years for fraud, is back in the news after Hulu and Netflix released competing documentaries in the same week.
On Monday, Hulu surprisingly dropped its own documentary about the 2017 music festival just days ahead of Netflix’s big release.
A source told Entertainment Weekly that Hulu felt its documentary “Fyre Fraud,” which was written by Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason, provided “enlightening context” ahead of the Netflix release.
They could be alluding to the fact that Hulu points out that Jerry Media who was behind the promotion for the Fyre Festival, was also producing the Netflix documentary about the series.
One of the main interview subjects of “Fyre Fraud” was former Jerry Media employee, Oren Aks, who alleges the company knew there were red flags about the festival, but did nothing about it. He also claims he was told to put a search filter on Instagram flagging words including “lineups, performers, details, info, flights, fraud, stupid and scam.”
“Anytime there would be anything that was ‘distasteful’ or calling Fyre out on anything, it was always a matter of ‘go to that source and eliminate it,’” Aks says in the documentary.
Jerry Media defended their actions with a written statement, which was included in Hulu’s doc. “All actions taken by Jerry Media were done at the direction of the Fyre Festival,” the statement reads.
