Bella Hadid Addresses Fyre Festival Fiasco
Fashion model Bella Hadid is the latest celebrity to speak out on their involvement in Fyre Festival, at least if you can call avoiding responsibility for the botched festival, “speaking out.”
Executives in charge of the festival waived off early warnings about the impossibility of pulling it off in 2017, and those unfortunate enough to attend the Bahamian adventure were met by a terrifying scene. With sharks surrounding the island, dire accommodations, and cheese sandwiches standing in for luxury dining, the paying customers at Fyre Festival were rightfully ticked off.
So Hadid, who previously helped promote the festival on social media alongside other models, took to Twitter to share an apology to the fans who showed up expecting the experience of a lifetime:
❤️… pic.twitter.com/5XqHXBGIn9
— Bella Hadid (@bellahadid) April 29, 2017
After explaining she had nothing to do with the actual execution of the event, Hadid told her followers she felt horrible about what happened to those in attendance.
“I feel so sorry and badly because this is something I couldn’t stand by,” she said, “although of course if I would have known about the outcome, you would have all known too. I hope everyone is safe and back with their families and loved ones.”
Hadid goes to great lengths in her opening statement to explain why promoting something she was uninformed about is actually not her fault. She may be technically correct, but an event like Fyre Festival highlights an unfortunate trend of check-collecting for something without being informed of all the details. Mistakes like these will continue to happen if well-known “influencers” don’t look into the product they’re getting paid to promote.
Nobody seems to want to take the blame for Fyre Festival so far; Ja Rule did take responsibility for the failure of the event, but insisted in his Twitter statement it was decidedly, “NOT MY FAULT.” The head of the event released a lengthy statement on the botched festival, saying it was “a little naive” to think their team could undertake this project without more help. Having watched Fyre Festival turn into a reenactment of Lord of the Flies, calling the team behind it a “little naive” is like saying the Titanic had a “small leak” after hitting an iceberg.
Musical acts and major influencers involved have reacted in different ways as the PR disaster unfolded. Proposed headliner Blink-182 backed out in pretty standard fashion, and told fans they weren’t confident they’d have the tools to put on a good show. Kendall Jenner—who helped promote Fyre Festival in a since-deleted post on her Instagram—decided to go in a different route, and spent her weekend posting topless photos and not addressing the controversy:
A post shared by Kendall (@kendalljenner) on Apr 29, 2017 at 9:49am PDT
Reports claim Jenner received $250,000 for her since-deleted Fyre Festival post—talk about a good hustle—which might explain why she’d choose to remain mum on the subject.
Fyre Festival 2017 does sound like the experience of a lifetime, though it’s for entirely different reasons than the organizers promised. Everyone involved should use Fyre Festival as an opportunity to reflect on what they choose to associate their names with.
