On Wednesday, a federal court in the US dismissed the class-action lawsuit against Ja Rule that alleged he had falsely promoted Fyre Festival. The American rapper was a founder and promoter of the 2017 event.
Festival attendees filed a lawsuit against Ja Rule (Jeffrey Atkins) and Grant Margolin (Fyre Festival Chief Marketing Officer). The lawsuit alleged that the two men made false claims on social media about Fyre Festival, including its amenities, performances, and food.
A judge from the US District Court for the South District of New York has dismissed the case, saying Ja Rule and Margolin didn’t know the event wouldn’t go ahead.
“Atkins and Margolin were participants in organising or promoting a large-scale event,” said the judge. “There is no assertion that the festival when first conceived or introduced to the public was intended not to go forward or that defendants intended not to perform by organising the advertised amenities and accommodation.”
The court also found the complaint hadn’t specified the time the statements were released and didn’t allege that they were false at the time.
“The Court agrees that the subjective qualifiers of ‘FOMO-inducing’ and ‘Coachella x1000’ are too ‘exaggerated, blustering, and boasting’ for a reasonable consumer to rely on,” the judge said in relation to Ja Rule’s tweets on the event.
Billy McFarland, Fyre Festival creator, has already been sentenced to six years in prison for wire fraud charges and was sentenced last year.
Ja Rule denies accountability for the festival.
I too was hustled, scammed, bamboozled, hood winked, lead astray!!!
— Ja Rule (@Ruleyork) January 20, 2019
