Hulu Stealth Drops Fyre Fest Documentary Featuring Interview With Founder Billy McFarland

Netflix just got burned.

Only days ahead of the planned Jan. 18 release of Netflix’s much-hyped Fyre Festival documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, Hulu has surprise dropped its own documentary, Fyre Fraud — and it, unlike Netflix’s doc, features an exclusive interview with Fyre Festival head Billy McFarland.

(To be clear, this isn’t the Fyre Fest docuseries Hulu picked up last year, which is being produced by Billboard, Mic, and The Cinemart, and will chronicle the events leading up to the failed festival. That’s still due to premiere later this year.)

For those not in the know, here’s what went down with Fyre Fest: In late 2016, massively popular influencers like Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and Emily Ratajkowski, who each boast millions of Instagram followers, all began advertising Fyre Festival, a music fest put together by McFarland and rapper Ja Rule. Set to take place over two weekends in April and May 2017, Fyre Fest was billed as an ultraluxe, Coachella-esque escape to the (later revealed to be entirely made up) private island “Fyre Cay,” which organizers falsely claimed once belonged to infamous drug trafficker Pablo Escobar.

Attendees paid between $500 (for basic tier tickets) and $12,000 (for VIP treatment including supposed upscale accomodations) to attend the fest. They were promised gourmet meals, entertainment from bands like Blink-182, and stays in “modern, eco-friendly, geodesic domes.”

When attendees arrived at Fyre Fest, though, they found themselves not on a private island, but on tourist destination Great Exuma, close to a chain Sandals resort. Instead of geodesic domes, they found disaster relief tents with soaking-wet mattresses. Instead of Blink-182, a half-finished stage setup. And instead of gourmet meals, processed cheese sandwiches and limp salads in Styrofoam boxes, a facet of the fest that instantly became a meme.

Many attendees were stranded on the island for at least a day, and thousands of them filled social media with videos, photos, and updates detailing their conditions. Unsurprisingly, after the booming attention and chaos at the locale, the fest’s second weekend was cancelled. McFarland and Ja Rule (who claimed not to be at fault

) subsequently faced several class-action lawsuits from attendees, including one for $100 million.

Investigations into Fyre Fest’s financials led to McFarland admitting he’d used false documents to convince investors to load money into the event. In October 2018, he was sentenced to six years in federal prison after pleading guilty to two counts of wire fraud.

Which brings us back to Hulu’s punnily-named Fyre Fraud. In contrast to Netflix with its advert campaign for The Greatest Party That Never Happened, Hulu made no mention of Fyre Fraud before releasing it today. Judging from the trailer (below), Fyre Fraud — directed by Jenner Furst (Welcome to Leith) and Julia Willoughby Nason (Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story) — examines the cultural fallout from Fyre Fest. Netflix’s, on the other hand — directed by Chris Smith (Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond) — is billed as a gritty look at the hour-to-hour breakdown of the event’s first and only weekend.

“What Fyre Festival did prove is that the power of influence is real,” says one Fyre Fraud interviewee in a trailer voiceover. Another adds, “These guys figured out a way to optimize social media — almost weaponize it.”

And, of course, Hulu’s ace in the hole is the interview with McFarland, which looks to be no softball bit. In the last seconds of the trailer, a producer asks McFarland if he’s a sociopath. The trailer cuts to black before McFarland, visibly considering his answer, can reply.

You can see Fyre Fraud’s trailer below, and stream it now on Hulu. Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened premieres this Friday on Netflix.