Fyre with an F ft. Billy McFarland 01:00:05

It's Sophia Franklin. You are listening to Sophia with an F. And the F is for phenomenal. This podcast is rated F. Are you going to do a fire festival? I can't right now because I'm on probation, but...

In my life, I have to do it. And my entire goal is like do Fyre Festival 1.5 because the first one was half done. And it's one and done. No money's allowed. So it's like purely I'm funding it like after everybody's paid back. If you guys haven't noticed, I haven't had a new merch drop in a minute. But that is all about to change very, very soon. What you guys don't see is the madness behind the scenes and what shipping merch out really looks like.

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- Hey, sleuths, what's up? Welcome to Sophia with an F. Today I am joined by legendary, infamous, and newly released Billy McFarland. - What's up, Sophia? Thank you. Love the intro. - Billy, let me just explain. I mean, everyone knows who you are, but maybe there's someone out there who doesn't. Billy, you're a businessman, entrepreneur,

famously known for Fyre Festival, the festival that never happened. Did happen, but didn't happen at the same time, right? How does it feel being like a free man? - So like, I never really thought about this, but I think it would be so cool in five years if I'm doing another podcast where they introduce me with something other than the Fyre Festival. So I think that's a good life goal to have.

- Well, we're in a very similar boat because every single podcast I go onto it's Sophia from, you know, I talked to you for two seconds about this off air, but I need to address this. So we have a mutual friend and this was years ago. I was in Los Angeles. I was with a bunch of friends.

It was a very crazy time in my life. I was staying at this very insane house.

And I remember I was upstairs in this dude's room, me and all my friends. And he pulls down this box and he says, this is all of Billy McFarlane's shit. His diaries, his documents, like every single thing. Like, look, look, look. Like passing it around for us to read it. I didn't read it, Billy. I respected your privacy. Well, first of all, is that true? So, yeah.

Can I give a stare down to the camera, like to this guy who's not my friend? 'Cause I want my diaries and journals back, please. But yeah, I've been looking for them, so this is fucking wild. The real story is I have this incredible business partner who I've known for like 12 years, and I've been mailing him my writing from jail, like on a weekly basis for four years.

This person we're talking about was pitching him on some concept and like they ended up at the same house together for a short period of time. And that's where the journal entries were. But we had called this guy saying, hey, we think we left some journal entries at your place and he denies it. So I want that back, please. Oh my fucking God. I had to go through 10 months of solitary to write all that shit. So I think I deserve to have my journal entries back. But thank you for letting me know. Oh.

Well, they're safe and sound wherever he has them. He's probably on the run at this point, so I'm not sure if we're going to find them. That's very true. Fuck, why didn't I take them? You should have. I would have given them back to you. I would have like charged you for it, probably. But you would have like understood my psychology maybe more and asked like different questions today. So it could have been cool. Exactly. That is fucking... So how much like...

How much writing does he have from you? Like an everyday letter from jail that you were like sending off? - Yeah, probably a few thousand pages. We would have these like 80 sheet notebooks and I would just bang through them. - That is fucking crazy. - Yeah, I mean there's nothing else to do, right? It's like burpees and writing, so.

Yeah, we're definitely going to get into prison life in a second. I just can't get over the fact that I thought he was bullshitting me when he said that. And I was like, you're full of shit. But like, I guess it was your stuff. No, it was real. So is he trying to get laid by saying, hey, I got this guy in jail sending me journal entries? Like, sweet man. Yeah.

Billy, I think you are 99% accurate. Crazy. Real quick, this is super motivating. I now have two aspirations because of Sophia. One is to not be introduced to the fire festival guy. And the second is to be cool enough that if I mail some of my journal entries, they get laid. So...

So if I can pull either one of those off, like, thank you. Right. Well, I mean, how long have you been out of prison again? My sentence ended August 30th. So like five months. Okay. So your upbringing, I want to talk about that because it's,

Everyone is like Billy from Fire Festival. Who was Billy before Fire Festival? Well, you grew up really wealthy. Just like regular, like middle class, I guess, suburban New Jersey. Just started programming literally like nine or 10 years old. And I was like building companies when I should have been, you know, doing like middle school things. So yeah, I was like a super nerd. And then like,

programming introduced me to the crazy worlds of New York City and entertainment. And that's how everything got kicked off. I see the nerd. Yeah. I see that in a very positive way, by the way. Thank you. But for sure. How were you with the ladies growing up? I guess like pretty bad when I was super young. And then when I started realizing that like I could program to get girls in some weird way, it started like getting better. I built a social network in middle school and basically

And by accident, like I limited how many pictures the kids could upload to their profiles. Then a couple of the girls had come up to me complaining. But then when I realized like I could fix it for everybody, I didn't. And it's like fix it for like the one-off girls. So I'd make the girls, you have to come to me first. Make it second up on more pictures like you did for Sarah. I'm like, oh, okay, I guess so. That was like my hack to get them to come talk to me. So that worked a little bit. That's fucking smart. And is this before or after Facebook or what? When you were doing this?

I was in seventh grade, so I don't know, I was 12, 13 years old. - So Mark Zuckerberg stole your shit. - I think Facebook was like in Harvard only at this point and like MySpace was a thing and I'm like, hey, can I make a private network for middle schools? The worst part of this, it was called your hot site

The school found out about it, freaked out, made me sell it. And then when I was applying to college, like literally four years later, like a junior in high school, I had it like front and center on my resume below, you know, a couple other things. And I was meeting with the dean of this school and he goes, Oh, let me only pull your hot site up. And it had been like resold a couple of times since then. And it was now turned into a porn site. So he pulls up on his computer. He's like, it's been turned into a porn site, a porn site. This is,

literally four years later. Can we check this porn site out or what? I checked recently since I got out of jail. It's no longer live, but it was yourhotsite.com before. I was 12 years old. Give me a break. I thought it was cool. Okay. I could help people make their own website that I thought was hot. 1,000%. I mean, no hate on porn also. Yeah. That helps people. Yeah. So that was not bad. And, you know, when you go about it in a very careful way. So what did...

Or what do your parents do? - They do like real estate stuff in New Jersey. - Okay. - And yeah, they're like not involved in like my New York escapades. - They're not? - No. - Well, how do they feel about the whole prison thing? - I think it's just like super embarrassing for all friends and family. - Mm.

- The hardest part of jail that no one tells you, but you told me you got arrested, so I wanna dive into this too. But the hardest part is that like the punishment really is on the people who care about you. Because like when you're going through something, you at least kind of comprehend it. But when you're not there, your mind just goes to like the darkest places. So it's just the hardest for like the people who truly care about you. - Right. And by the way, your stint and mine were very different, but I had gotten arrested multiple times.

And yeah, I think that's one of the hardest things is like seeing the look on your mom's face. Like, fuck, you know? Yeah, it's scary. But to all the guy listeners, I want to clarify, in the Brooklyn Detention Center, I would see some of the female prisoners in like different cages and none of them looked like Sophia. So don't get arrested thinking you're going to meet Sophia Angel. Yes, very, very true. I mean, let's jump into it.

We are going to talk about Fyre Festival, but like I really want to talk about your stint in prison. Well, actually, I feel like we need to talk about why you were there. So you dropped out of college and then you have multiple startups, right? Under your belt. Yeah. So dropped out at 19, I guess like.

halfway through, I guess like you could say I finished my freshman year, I think technically started my first like venture capital backed business at 19. Oh, that essentially allowed me to move to New York. And I think like one of the fun stories is I was in the second ever WeWork space and

So it was back in like, you know, Adam walking around shoeless in the WeWork and like the early, early days where it was like one floor. - Right. - And it was basically a handful of companies that received funding from like this group of investors who were all kind of there. So much different than what it became. But yeah, I was like 19, thought I was like the man because I'd built some like shitty website in my dorm room. And now I'm sitting in like Varick Street in downtown Manhattan trying to make shit happen. - How do you feel about Adam Neumann?

I think, like, I don't, like, don't know him, so I think, like, he's an incredible entrepreneur, and I think that there's different skill sets from taking something from, like, zero to one and from, like, one to two, and it's fine if you don't have all those skill sets, but I think, like, everybody talking shit probably doesn't have the capabilities of building a $5 billion business that, like, changed an industry that hadn't been changed in so long. Do you think...

there's a little bit of like a scam artist, con artistry to Adam Neumann. - I just think that like, as with most entrepreneurs, you don't know when you're no longer like the guy anymore. So while it's easy to dis

not saying, hey, it's time for the next person to take over. You should also look at the accomplishments and realize like very few people were able to literally change the way people work like you did. So you think it's less delusion and more maybe denial or just not wanting to kind of give up

you know, what they build. I think it's both. And when you're told you're great and you see the results for so many years, you think you can keep evolving. But there are very few people like Mark Zuckerberg who could like take it every step of the way. And it's just natural where you kind of reach that limit of what your skillset is. And you're probably best going to do it again with something new and having somebody, you know, take it over and not manage it. So yeah, I think like

I didn't know how to get guardrails and obviously he was far more incredible in like so many ways, but it's all about like needing to understand when you need to bring on like guardrails and help to protect like your creation. Jail has been really weird because it showed me that we all have like so much goodness, but like everybody's also highly flawed. So I think it made me more like respectful of people's greatness, but also more aware of their flaws. So it's like, I think I'm much quicker now to like admire people

what someone that something does make, wow, like that person's incredible, but also like, oh wait, I can, I can see like the issue underlying a lot of these like decisions making too. So it's kind of like a weird, like psychological, you know, time. So you're not saying necessarily that you're more compassionate. You're saying you've been able to understand people deeper and psychologically on like a, on a different level than you were before. I think certainly like more compassionate across the board, but also like,

I think with a lot of other entrepreneurs, I can notice some more character flaws that we have. And it's just like, stop it, you're doing this wrong. So it's just kind of funny to see both sides of it too. But on the compassion side, so much of the experience of jail, which is the value of exposure. And we were so spoiled living in New York, or at least Manhattan, where we just kind of see all the world at their glory and at their worst part.

And my last jail was like outside of Detroit in Michigan. And it's like a lot of these kids were arrested at 19 in Chicago. And they didn't know like one person in their life who had a real job or who like wasn't selling crack. And it's like, fuck, it's like so many people in America just haven't,

been blessed like with the exposure that a lot of people have in these major cities yeah you understand their story people think oh criminal oh they did this like unforgivable and you need to understand someone's story

So I was walking around like with this, there were very few people in for financial crimes this last jail I was at. And there was a guy with a pretty high profile case, like Harvard guy who's like 55 years old, who stole a bunch of money. Can we name drop? I'm not gonna name drop, but he's like, he's like, look at these guys. Like, look, look, they're idiots. And I'm like, and I'm like looking at him. It's like, no dude, like we're the fucking idiots, right? Like we had our whole lives handed to us.

And then we ended up here where everybody they knew is here. Right. So that's where they were expected to go. And like, we don't know anybody here. It's like, or the idiots. And like that statement from him, like, which is like so mind blowing in terms of like how wrong he was and how wrong a lot of people were when approaching the subject. Well, and just the white privilege and like you and you checking him on it. So Fyre Festival, yeah.

What was your original vision for the company? So like there wasn't ever a festival until it was too late. And I think it's the easiest way to say it. I built this booking app where I was trying to basically do like an Airbnb for celebrities or like anybody who had like any like loser 22 year old tech company like me could contact some sort of entertainer and book them for like a concert or a sponsorship.

basically trying to build a marketplace there. But I was just like highly addicted to like the adrenaline of these island adventures. And for years, I've been like flying really small airplanes, just like taking friends to the middle of nowhere. And it was like pushing the boundaries like of our life and safety in the Bahamas. And as I was meeting more entertainer types through the fire app, I started bringing them as well. What does that mean? Pushing the safety and the boundary? Like taking a six seat,

propeller plane from Long Island, which probably is safe to fly to like DC straight across the ocean, like to an island that like barely exists. So like naked and afraid, like the show kind of? Yeah, but like luxuriously. Getting like a sick island, but then still like pushing it. Like, all right guys, like it's the middle of the night. Like, let's see, you can like drive a jet ski out further in the pitch black and like go catch a fish. Okay. Some real, real rebel shit. Just going for it. Okay. So you had an app,

And then somehow it turned into a festival. - I was like there on one of these trips and my high school friend who was basically just like showing off to me, like, hey, look what I'm doing now. And I brought him along. He's like, you should totally do a festival for Magnesis, which is my other company's members. I'm like, hell yeah. And the rest is history. And I remember getting home like after that trip

getting an introduction to the head of what was like the biggest modeling agency at the time, one of my investors. And I called him, I was like, I want like these six models to come with me next weekend to do a video for my festival. And he literally laughed me off the phone. He's like, all right, kid, like, you know, funny, like I took your call because I know you're an investor and like, he's great, but...

I don't care how much money he's going to invest in you, this is not gonna happen. - Okay. - Three weeks later he called back saying, hey my entire roster wants to come. - Okay, so what was the change, what flipped? - So basically I got pissed off that this guy told me no, and I'm like, I'm gonna show him, and it's like started working my way down the list of different agencies.

and just started going every weekend and we would bring people there and come back and then everybody would say the same thing. That was the craziest weekend of my life. - So you would just offer free trips to some of these models or influencers or whatever? - Basically I was thinking ahead to them saying, hey, I'll take you,

we're gonna do a big announcement in a couple months and you have to post for that and you have to post a couple of times and you have to come as well. So, and like they were saying yes, we weren't paying them for these early trips. We ended up paying the bigger names like in the weeks to come. But that was kind of the pitch and they were coming and then we'd come back to New York and be like, that was fucking wild. And it's like the word got around and it went from like getting laugh off the phone to literally three weeks later like begging, like hey, when can they come? When can they come? And that just created this like tsunami swell of

everything good and then terrible that came of it. - Yeah. So the guy told you no and you were like, fuck that, I'm gonna go not directly to the source but kind of and just kinda like build hype around it myself. - Yeah. - And then the big names followed soon. - Exactly. But I was certainly wrong. Like, it's definitely something emotional journey for me where I was

the root of all problems, I like made so many bad mistakes and I need to pay for that. And like money is a part of it, but it's a small part of it. It's like rebuilding trust and there's so much needs to come. But part of the balance for me too is when some people reach out to me who I feel like wronged me, it's like, wait, do I tell them to fuck off? Or do I realize that like I was an asshole too and they should be nice. And like that, I just like don't know how to handle at this point. Okay. So to our mutual friend, we might forgive you.

If you bring back the dog. There's always exceptions and I think he falls into that exception. Okay, so you claim the company to be worth 90 million. Yeah. And according to authorities, you guys only did 60K in business. Where did the 90 million come from? Yeah.

Yeah. So before we get into that, I was definitely wrong and definitely lied. I think there's certainly a misconception though about how these venture capital businesses work. I couldn't claim it's worth this. If someone gave $15 million and got, what, 15%, then it's worth 90 something million dollars. It's kind of like how the math works. But underlying all that, I was lying about our company's revenue for sure. So I think a lot of entrepreneurs definitely push the boundaries in terms of what's morally acceptable. And I think in a weird way, it was...

not quite encouraged, but allowed for a certain period of time. And like, I took it way far beyond like what anybody with any kind of ethics would deem acceptable. But I do think there was some level, not with me, but in like the general startup venture capital world of in those early days, like you got to push everything and that could include your rosy numbers. Right. Yeah.

- So you would forge documents, correct? - Yeah, so it's like, I was super, super unsophisticated about it. I basically made like an Excel spreadsheet that was bullshit, like saying, here's how much we made. - And they believed it?

It actually raised less money with my lies because people realized it was bullshit and they were still investing because they had known me and trust me for so long. And that's like the biggest thing that people don't understand is I truly think if I didn't lie, I would have raised more money and had a better chance of pulling it off, which is just such a mind fuck. So what was it that made you want to lie?

- Pressure, like you're just riding the wave, like you don't wanna let people down, it feels good, adrenaline rush. - So I actually think it makes my crime worse, but most of the investors are people who I had known for five or six years, they backed me when I was 19, again when I was like 22, then again at 24 for the Fyre Festival. So they had seen all the ups and downs throughout the years, so when I came to them and said, "Hey guys, this one's gonna be much bigger,"

they were not in the place to question me because they had built the trust up. So I think like violating that trust is worse than wire fraud. Like both send you to jail, but that's where I totally like morally fucked up. And I was so scared to just like, I was a pussy, right? Like I was afraid to deliver bad news. And I kept thinking that these people cared so much about me whether they did or didn't. And if I disappointed them in any capacity, like my self-worth as this like young man, it just like diminished.

So I was so scared to not be like perfect in the eyes of the people who took chances on me. Right. I'm sure you've had a lot of time to think about those things while you were in prison. One big lesson is that if someone is too good to be true, where they're just like always saying the right thing to make you happy, like it's hard to trust them. Cause like I used to be that person. I kind of see it. You were like the yes man type thing. Always like want to make you happy. Like just meet you. Like how can I make your day as good as possible? And like when it becomes too much, like, you know,

hard to kind of trust. Yes. If something is not perfect, like can they tell you? And if they can't tell you, it just like makes that problem worse. You need, you need to surround yourself with no people, which I think I surround myself with too many no people and I need more yes people. That's definitely something to it though, because like,

In order to do something great, you need to have a concept that most people think is ridiculous, right? And then when you pull it off, that's what elevates you. So if you have people who only say no and they hold you back from that, I can see that being a bad thing too. Okay, I want to ask you about this business idea. Super random tangent. And this is trademarked. No one can take it. It's not mine. It's someone I know. He wants to do toilet paper for urinals because he said that after dudes pee...

they will just like shake their dick and then put it back in their boxers and will literally have piss in their boxers and think that's fine and he thinks it's disgusting and so he'll wipe his wiener hole with toilet paper so i was you're gonna get me in trouble but i was peeing in the bathroom at night and a girl was brushing her teeth she saw me pee and then i

did exactly as your boyfriend described I didn't use a toilet paper and she grabbed the toilet paper and like ripped off the piece and gave it to me and like started like a 30 minute argument about it being ridiculous so wait wait wait she grabbed the toilet paper for you she basically said wipe yourself off

- Oh! - And I'm like, what the, I'm not doing that. And like, you know, I'm like, got stubborn, like men don't do that. Like I didn't say that exactly, but that was my, that was my like heels in the ground kind of moment and we argued about it for a while. So. - Wow. - I think it's actually interesting concept and like make all the girls buy it for their boyfriends for like some sort of holiday. So yeah. - We're gonna put a poll up and see how many dudes wipe their wiener hole. Okay, so back to Fyre Festival. I don't know what the fuck we were just talking about.

- So these influencers, whatever, they go, you paid them to go though, right? To post? - Maybe like 12 to 15 of the big names were paid to come and post. - How much would you pay me?

Back when I was like a 24 year old, I would have looked in like my nine accounts and added it all up. Whatever that number was. And like, depending on the morning, it could have been negative a hundred grand or like positive 10 million. So it depended on the day. Depends on what I caught you. Yeah.

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Your cash back really adds up. The days leading up to the event, you had to know like shit was about to fucking explode. I didn't know until the last second and it sounds crazy, but I truly thought this is going to work.

The festival is scheduled from Thursday, sorry, from Friday through Sunday for two weekends. But it was like on an island, right? So we had to get everybody there. So we chartered these two 737 planes. We set up a terminal in Miami International Airport. Like people didn't appreciate the fucking magnitude of these logistics and clearly neither did I. But had our own fire terminal like in Miami Airport. And we had these planes going back and forth all day long starting Thursday morning to get everybody there.

So Wednesday night, like we weren't ready. And I'm like, oh, I'm a genius. Let's just put lights up so we can work all night long and be ready by Thursday morning. Okay. But then as soon as like my great idea came, the storm, like as if scripted in a movie, just rolled in and everything just turned to shit.

But I mean, there were supposed to be like these like extravagant villas and like. Yeah, we weren't ready. We weren't ready. And like. But you didn't know you weren't ready until. I think I would justify to myself that like the island's beautiful. We have artists who are coming or on their way, whatever it was. We have all these hot fucking girls that are going to arrive. Like people are going to have a good time. Like everything is good enough.

that it would still like be amazing and like that's the mentality that I had and like never came to terms with how far off it would have been right and you were like this could come together I couldn't zoom out and like I kept getting caught up in like the small wins like oh like look these mattresses we just bought on Amazon like credit card like two weeks ago they look great like awesome like we're gonna make this happen or like oh great like the alcohol company actually like

sent us a barge like okay cool we have drinks now like right I was like so caught up in the little shit and the little positive yeah I couldn't like understand that I was climbing this mountain that was impossible and like cool I could take like one step but I'm so gonna get blown off in two weeks right well I mean also you don't want to there's like a lot of money at stake right reputation and money just couldn't just

didn't have the ability to call people and be like, hey guys, I can't do this. I just didn't know how to be that person. Yeah. Do you regret it now? Do you wish you had been like, probably don't show up here. I mean, I regret lying from day one. And I think that

what could have happened was we announced the festival where before it was really a festival clearly there's interest in it i could have sat down and be like all right i don't have enough money i don't have the experience like let me call my backers and explain to them and they would have been okay like let's push out for 18 months let's get a real you know music company involved to execute it let's figure out how much we need and who's going to back it like it would have worked so like the lies

the downfall like beyond jail in so many ways. And I know it wasn't just you behind the festival, obviously. Ja Rule is I think like the most famous one, right? In terms of like who was your partner

Like the day of, we had almost 800 people who were working there. So that was everybody from like our techies back in like the U S to people hired to actually man the festival site. So just a lot of people, I didn't know how to manage it. And I just remember standing in this like milk carton getting yelled at and like yelling back to all these ticket holders. And I'm like, I'm paying 800 people. Like, where the fuck are they? I just like felt like I couldn't find anybody. It just like showed my bad management skills at the time. Yeah. But our payroll was fucking crazy. You know, it was like,

$10 million a month in like salaries and it's like I can't find one person. $10 million a month in salaries? Yeah, it was absurd. What?

- Whoa, that's a lot of money. I mean, who was running your finances? - No one, that was one of the problems. - Ja Rule? - So I didn't, people think I was in a back room. I truly didn't have my own credit or debit card for like three months before the festival. I had nine bank accounts between personal and the companies. 20 people had logins to all of them and I had various team members with all my money at any time. So I'd be at dinner calling someone, hey, can you like Zelle this restaurant I'm at or can you wire this person for me?

It's all like a total shit show. That is fucking crazy. Were you like picturing a Coachella type thing?

I think like I was picturing more of like an adventure and music was a part of it. Music wasn't the end goal. I never wanted to have like 80,000 people like at a stage going like this. I wanted 3,000 people on boats, on jet skis, on plane, just like exploring. So it's almost like Indiana Jones, like with the coolest artists that I thought like, you know, performing in the background. Right. Are you going to do a fire festival? I can't right now because I'm on probation, but yeah.

In my life, I have to do it. And my entire goal is like get some business success in the next couple of years and just do it for free where like not one person's paying, but it's like do the craziest festival of all time and never do it again. Okay. So it's like do Fyre Festival 1.5 because the first one was half done. Uh-huh. And it's one and done. You know, pick who comes, like a mixture of old people and new people. And there's not no dollar, no money's allowed. So it's like purely I'm funding it like after everybody's paid back. And it's like...

Just like me kind of just like doing it just to fucking do it and like not for a business. - So, 'cause I heard something like you,

I don't know if you filed a lawsuit or like something, but you didn't want to pay the people who had purchased tickets or you wanted them to pay you. Is that accurate? I'm not sure. There's been like, like truthfully, there have been so many lawsuits and like the lawyers are crazy expensive, right? So like I'm trying to get caught up and like I'm paying them as I can, but yeah. And I've certainly spent probably like a million dollars on lawyers in the past, you

you know, since everything fell. So it's like trying to catch up. Yeah. Do you have to pay them like on a retainer hourly? Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's never ending. Right. A million dollars. It's like my total legal bill from fire festival failure to today is like around a million dollars. Yeah. So that's crazy. So crazy. So it's like you get arrested for losing money, but then you need to have a shitload of money to like,

Yeah. Wait, hold on. Where is this million? Where is this million dollars coming from? By the way, I had like friends and other people like helping me like after the festival collapsed, like pay legal bills. But like recently it's just like been me and my earnings. My legal bills like today are just like not as crazy as they were before, but it was just like a total clusterfuck for sure. Yeah. Last thing about fire festival and then we're moving on. So when you guys ran out of water, there's like this infamous thing that happened with one of your partners and

And you told him to go talk to whatever people on the island who were basically in charge of the water source. Yeah. And you told him go suck the guy's dick, right? In order to get the water. Is that correct? So I want to put this back on you for one second and then I'll answer the question. Okay.

I was so scared to tell anybody any bad news. Do you think like me as this like pussy 24 year old or 25 maybe at the time had the capability to order a grown ass man to go suck a dick in like in serious behavior? Like you're saying you were joking. Like it was a joke. Yes, it was totally in jest. It's like go do whatever it takes. Like go suck that guy's dick and get the water. But wasn't he like down to do it?

I had no idea until I heard stories in jail about me ordering a guy to go suck a dick. So I remember this jail guard tried to trip me up too. He's like, did you order someone to blow a government official? I'm like, wait, what? Where is this coming from? He's like, answer the question right now. I'm like, what? I never heard about this.

So yeah, it was like news to me, like when this all kind of became a big thing. Okay. Do you think the guard was kind of asking for his personal? I don't know. The way it felt like a setup and like, I didn't even hear about it yet. And I'm like, wait, wait, what's going on? Like I didn't demand anybody do anything. Any customs officer, like I was just so confused. Okay. And it just kind of created this shit storm. Yeah. So at that point when you're like, go suck a dick for water for these people, like you knew shit had hit the fan.

Yeah. But I was also like talking to like a 25 year old guy. I'm like, go do whatever it takes. Like I have a million problems right now. Like go suck this guy's dick, get this water at the solve this other issue. And like, that was my mentality. It was like one of a thousand storms that day. And so I think it was like a little taken out of context, but I think it makes for good TV. So, okay. Your conviction started when you and Ja Rule were sued for a hundred million dollars in class action lawsuit for

What was your immediate reaction when you were being sued for that much? Because I would, my heart would come out of my chest. So I had just gotten back to New York. I think I was just arrested for the first time due to the festival. So I knew I was totally fucked. And then I got the news for like a hundred million dollar lawsuit. And all I remember is that like 12 of my high school friends took me out to dinner that night. Like after the lawsuit came out and like that, that was my only memory of the day. What? And they're like, you're...

see a dude like you're going to jail type thing yeah i think that was basically the underlying theme although no one said it yeah but yeah i think like they saw the numbers like all right we'll buy dinner and you worry about the hundred million were they were they like uh did any of them try to lie to you type thing like you'll be fine no no one tried to lie so i think like that's the craziest thing no one's like it's okay kid everybody's like yeah you're fucked yeah wait where do they find you to arrest you uh i was at my apartment and they just showed up yeah to your apartment yeah

Did you ever think about like maybe not being at your apartment? No. You were like, I'm just gonna... I'm done. You're not gonna be like running. No, I'm done. Okay. There's no other way to do it. Okay. So when you're booked into jail...

And then you're released on a 300K bond. Yeah, so I go to jail. They came on like Friday night at like five o'clock. And this is the weekend, I think 4th of July, it was on like a Tuesday. So I'm like, oh fuck. And all I knew about jail from the movies, right? And I'm like, all right, I'm nonviolent, it's my first time, so I'll get bail no matter what. But I'm gonna be stuck here until Wednesday, like I think it was the holiday. So

So I get there on Friday, get introduced to my cellmate. He was like a heroin dealer doing like 10 years. His name was R. Isn't that interesting? Your cellmate who they pair you up with and you're like, we come from different, from different backgrounds. I just remember like walking into the cell. It was like underwear is like hanging on a string that he like pulled off of his bed sheet, like across the cell. He's like, yo, sup man. Sorry, I gotta move my shit. I'm like, wait, wait, were you scared? Yeah. It's my first time ever in jail. I'm in fucking Brooklyn detention center. This guy's like,

He fucking jacked all tattered up, like walking around like in his boxers and like hanging his underwear on the lines. Like, okay. Yeah. It's like, what are you in here for? And I told him, yeah, yeah, whatever. And he just didn't believe me. And I'm like, oh, well, I'm getting bailed tomorrow. So don't worry, you don't have to deal with me for very long. He looks at me with this like smirk. He goes, yeah, good luck, kid. Like no one's ever gotten bail on a Saturday. I've never seen that shit before. And he's kind of like saying this thing to me. And he goes,

but one advice, if they do let your crazy ass out and any girl is talking to you, knock her up now because that's the only chance she's going to talk to you again. I'm like looking at him. Well,

That's the only chance? Yeah, I'm like looking at them like, what? And then so they, I did like get out on Saturday. And did you hurry and get a girl pregnant or what? No, but the only thing the FBI asked me that day when they picked me up, it's like, what'd you learn from spending one night in jail? I said, they told me to knock my girlfriend up because it's the only way she's ever going to talk to me again. And they were cracking up. They were cracking up. Okay, amazing. Save on Cox Internet when you add Cox Mobile and get fiber-powered internet at home and unbeatable 5G reliability on the go.

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While you were out on Bontho, you got involved in like another scheme, NYC VIP access targeting Fyre Festival consumers with the intent of recouping some of the money

you owed. So there, there is no excuse for, for this. And I think I was going to say, how'd you have the balls to do that? I'm a fucking idiot. And there's like, I was wrong. And I think the only way I can justify to myself is that just because the festival failed and just because I spent one night in jail, like I hadn't learned yet. So, well, obviously, yeah. So yeah, like I was still in the same behavioral pattern. It's like,

being an asshole and it was wrong. So how soon after trial did you end up like going to prison prison? So a year after I was out on bail, my bail was revoked because of my genius idea as well on bail. So they brought me back to Brooklyn and like this time it was for real. I'm like that time I wasn't getting out and that was fucking scary. Yeah. Really scary. Brooklyn detention center is a, it's a hell hole. I'm just like every type of person from like

El Chopo was there for his pre-trial stuff to like, you know, to, to everything in between. So it was like, it was like, it's a hell hole. Okay. So when I was booked in, cause I was actually booked in, booked in like jumpsuit, everything. Nice. And how to sell me. Did you get the strip shirts? Yeah. Yes. All right, good. And I've mastered the technique. If you need any, if you want me to show you, I've mastered this strip search technique. What do you do? How do you smuggle shit in? Oh,

There is one guy who totally mastered it way beyond me. He had this belly button that was literally like a cave. Like you could get like lost in your belly button. It was so deep. He had to tie a string to the stuff he hid in his belly button. Shut the fuck up.

So they never understood how they couldn't catch this guy. And he would always have his drugs in like this little phone, like the size of your thumb. He called it the thumb phone and his belly button. They'd be strip searching him. They'd like put him in like a suit where he had to basically like shit himself. And they like look through his shit to see if he like swallowed anything and they could ever find his stuff. And he always come back out. I get to my belly button, like pull the string out. Wait, I'm sorry. Was that like, was that a natural belly button? Oh, it was a natural belly button. Artificial string, natural belly button.

but they can never understand how this guy could not get caught. And they would take him away for weeks and he'd come back like, oh, still got it. Wait, that's like something happened to him with the umbilical cord. It was hilarious though, but he mastered the strip stretch. Another time when I first got to Brooklyn, the belly button guy was later in my education, I guess you could say. Another guy is trying to like,

teach me how to, you know, shove shit up my ass and I never did it. And he's like, dude, there are like shelves in there. You go up to the left, you go up a little higher to the right. And he's like trying to explain to me like how much you can store in there. All the crevices, all the inner workings of your body. Take a left turn at this point. Right, right, right. So you were not put in, the prisons were the real. No, so I didn't get there. But Brooklyn, however, had all levels. So Brooklyn is mostly for people either before their trial

Or after their trial, people who didn't get bail, right? And I went there because my bail was revoked. So they had all security levels from like me up until, you know, someone with a life sentence for murder or whatever else it was. So was it a maximum security prison? Yeah, it was maximum security. But it was maximum security, but it had all security levels there. And everybody was mixed together. So like...

there were very few financial guys there because most financial people, you know, have bail on their case. Okay. Cause I was assuming, cause I always think there's like maximum security and there's this type of prison. And then there's this,

- Type of prison that they have for the Jordan Belfords and the Bernie Madoffs of the world. - Totally, totally true. - Is that where you went? - Yeah, so after Brooklyn, I was sent to a minimum security in upstate New York. And it was like a lot of financial guys were there and I just didn't last very long. So got in trouble. - What does that mean? - I was trying to write a book. I'm so stupid. And so I had a USB device, they found it.

- Did you bring it in through the belly button? - My belly button is not good enough for that, unfortunately. - Okay, okay. - And I was like, I've been in jail for seven months at this point, so I was super skinny, so I had nowhere to hide it in my belly button at that point. But yeah, I got in trouble and then they just kept shipping me to worse and worse jails. Literally, I took Con Air three times. So like on the airplane, like where the guards had the machine guns and like you're shackled and like gun like this in the plane, like that's scary shit. - Yeah, that is really scary.

Because when I was booked in, I knew I wasn't going to be there for like years and years. What did you do?

Underage drinking. Oh, Sophia. I was lining up for a drink. But, no, no, no, no. I gotta kill this guy? No. Okay, but Billy, listen to this. I got caught with a fake ID. Okay. Which they put me on the front cover of Busted Magazine, which is this magazine that's like, they sell all over. Where were you, New York? For forgery. So people thought I was like counterfeiting checks.

- That's cool, that's an edge to your persona. Where were you, were you in New York or no? - I was in Utah where there's no crime so they're like, ooh, this girl. But they booked me in and I was super scared and I think the cop was on a little bit of a power trip. This is not me saying it was fine what I did, but I mean, underage drinking, come on. What you did was bad. - Yeah, yeah, not for sure. - What I did was not bad. - You can't even compare it, yeah.

so where do they put you like in a big like holding cell yeah and i think it was well that was my third time getting arrested so i think they were like we really ought to like scare the we ought to scare this girl at this point you know we gotta scare the out of her so they booked me and and my cellmate was like this this meth head i'll never forget i told her i was scared she said

oh my god really it's so much better in here than out there and I was like oh so we're dealing with some real like type of bitch yeah but um when I asked when I would be released they said we have no clue it could be weeks and even just hearing weeks and there and I knew there were people there that had actually like murdered people in this jail and I'm like

what is going on? So I feel for you, I'm sure yours was on a different level, but-- - That's so hard, like not knowing is the hardest part. - Not knowing. - It's like, hey, if you said, okay, tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. I'm getting out of here, like it's still gonna suck, but you can like mentally get around it. - Exactly. - But not knowing, you just, oh my gosh. - Oh, I had no clue. - Yeah, oh, I feel bad, I'm sorry. It's terrible. - It was really terrible. - Terrible.

So, but my question is, I always thought the prisons where they take like the Bernie Madoffs and the Martha Stewart's,

You guys are like playing pickleball and, you know, having the best time ever. Is that not accurate? There was a tennis court at the first one. So there was like, it wasn't a nice tennis court. It was like a lot of lines drawn into like uneven, you know, blacktop, but definitely play tennis there. Is the food a little better? The food is just trash. I literally like ate out of a mop bucket for two years. Like the guys would take like the yellow mop buckets that janitors use and

they would steal like a cable cord from the TVs and like turn these mop buckets into fryers. So like literally eating food, they were frying out of like the janitor mop buckets. And like, that was my, literally my meals for two years straight. So I'm sure I'm dying of like many, many plastic based diseases. Yeah. I hope you've been to a doctor. Like you need, you need to get your blood. I know. A hundred percent. For sure. I'm scared to check. Okay.

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Oh my gosh. My friends threw a dinner for me when I got released. And like the next day it's like, he throws massive party at some restaurant. Like crazy. So your friends threw a party for you? Yeah, it was a dinner, but yes. So it wasn't you like throwing a party? I mean, I was certainly like involved in like, hey, who's getting in the party planning of a dinner reservation. I'm surprised they trusted you with the planning after Fyre Festival. I know. That's a good one.

Okay, so it wasn't like, because I wanted to ask you, how did you get this mentality to just not give a singular fuck? Yeah, I think like I had...

four years of being in jail where you know I spent two years where I'm like I'm like I can't do anything I'm pathetic like I'm fucking dead and like remorse kicked in and then it's like okay I can like do nothing or I can just go for it and then if I go for it honestly like I still might fuck up but I also have the chance then of like making things right so I'd rather try to go make it happen and

as long as they don't hurt anybody and only like help people in small ways along the way. I think like that's the more admirable path where I can like be proud of myself in 20 years rather than just like packing it in and you know, doing nothing. Yep. I agree with that. Now that you're in the world, um,

When people Google your name. Yep. Con artist. I didn't even notice a thing until literally now a month ago. And every single day, you know, as my witness, someone has asked me this question, how I feel about like being labeled a con artist on Wikipedia or Google, whatever the answer is. It's kind of crazy. Like, uh-huh.

I feel like I should start caring more. I guess I just like didn't care for a while, but I probably should care now. Care that about all the things you did or that the Wikipedia? No, I totally care about the things I did. Like that is awful. And I've had so long to understand like how it was wrong and what I'm going to do. But in terms of like a public statement, like, oh, he's like a con artist. Like, I don't know. Yeah. I guess like ate shit for so many years now at this point, it's like, does it really matter? Right. Right.

You don't have a plan to be a con artist. No, definitely not. Like catch me if you can. I'm just going to say like, I'm not like, I'm nowhere near as wild as that guy. Like, yes, I like lied probably worse than he did, but I was like, it

It was out of fear and like being soft, being naive and like wanting to make people happy. Yeah. Does it make the crime like less bad? And arguably it's like worse because they misled people who I cared about. Yeah. But yeah, it's like, it's based out of like insecurity rather than like trying to be like something like be a billionaire and steal everybody's money. Based out of insecurity. That's interesting. Yeah.

Do you know who Anna Delvey is? Yeah, she slept on my couch for like five months. I never lived there, but like in my niece's clubhouse, she slept there for five months. We have people ask you about her. Not really. Just like, I remember the news cycle when I was in jail and then people are like, you know, various people in jail are asking me about it. And the funniest thing the guards would say, it's like,

I know nothing about this, but my wife really wants to know, like, did you know I had a Delvey? It's like, no, you want to know. I started answering and they knew everything. It's like, no, I think it was you and not your wife. Wait, so she lived with you for five months? I had a loft in, uh, when I was just, I think I was 21. I'd gotten this like loft in Soho for my magnesis card. I was like, it was super early on.

And like, I thought it was cool. So I hired like a publicist and even though I didn't probably didn't need one and he's like, you gotta take care of this girl for two weeks, like let her stay on your couch and that needs for two weeks. She's like interning for X, Y, and Z. And like, you know, it would be a good favor to, you know, some of his other clients that he represented.

- Okay. - So I'm like, yeah, sure. And like two weeks turned into five months and I just didn't know how to like kick her out, you know? I mean, she was great. Like I just got her seamless like every day, never said a word to her. And so she won. - Never said a word? - Maybe like two minute conversations, but never had like a real conversation with her. - So you guys never hooked up? - No, oh no. - Do people like stan you guys as a couple?

Like, do they want you guys to be together? I don't know. You have no idea? No idea. Okay. She owes me dinner from all those seamlesses, I guess. Yeah. So what is dating like for you though? So I met this girl on bail actually. So years before I was invited to this like crazy gal in the Hamptons when I was like 21 years old.

and I shouldn't have been there and like went to this after party and saw this girl at the after party and I'm like, like, damn, she's fucking like, you know, she's my type. Like I want to talk to this girl. I'm like, it's kind of like staring at her, but like didn't have the balls. And like, I was like the little kid in the room and didn't like had the boss to go up and talk to her.

And I was on bail and I literally saw like the same girl on a billboard. So I took the picture, took her picture, did a reverse Google search on it. Super like creepy, found her agents like contact information. And I was on bail. I had like no money at this point. Like, you know, I've got nothing going on. So I call off the agent and it's like, listen, man, like I need a favor. I got this photo shoot and just basically booked her for this fake photo shoot.

So you see this girl at a party. And then years later, that was 21 or 22. So three or four years later, you know, she's obviously older now. On a billboard. On a billboard. I'm like, that's the same chick. You would remember that? I mean, I remember seeing the girl, like, you know. Right. Love at first sight. Yeah. So like, you know, took the picture, found it, did the fake photo shoot. And it's like, I had a book for other girls too. So it wasn't about her. They get there like, where's the hair and makeup? Where's the wardrobe? Like, um, um. You're like, this is a natural.

- I'm like, guys, I ran through this printer, so I'm gonna pretend like it's mine. Can we go back to the city now and hang out? And they're like, uh, no. - You're like taking pictures on your fucking iPhone pretending. - I'm sideways, like yeah, great, you guys look great. Went back to the city, nothing happened. And then like literally three days later, I actually had a meeting at my lawyer's office to see basically how fucked I was.

And I had a driver who was like using from time to time at this point and he takes the wrong turn and I'm super late and I'm yelling, I'm like, dude, what the fuck? Like they're gonna fuck me. And then he's like, boss, there's a girl from the photo shoot. And she was walking down the street. I'm like, pull over. So he pulled over. I'm like, hey. And I roll my window down and scream for her. I'm like, we're doing one again soon. Can I have your number? Couldn't think of anything better. And she gave me her number and the rest of the history. Yeah.

I'm surprised she wasn't like, fuck you. That wasn't a fucking photo shoot. But she gave me her number and then like, didn't know how to like, didn't know what to do for a date. So I'm like, pack your bags. You're going away for one night, but I can't leave New York. So like, it can't, it's not going to be crazy because you're a probation because I was on bail. It's like, it's the same rules now is then, and I can't leave New York. Uh, she's like, Oh, are we going skiing? I'm like, Oh, not quite. And,

It was the middle of the winter. We flew a small plane to Montauk and went jet skiing in like the middle of the winter, which is pretty fun. - Okay, so you have a girlfriend? - So she was with me for like the first few years of jail. We broke up at some point in jail, but she's around right now. So yeah, she went through a lot, so that was great. - That was one of the things I really wanted to ask you was, you know like the Jeffrey Dahmer thing? Not comparing you to him by the way, but did you receive a ton of fan mail?

And like girls being like, you're so hot. It was a lot of like entrepreneur guys who were like, you're starting a business. And like, while they didn't do something wrong, like I did, they could understand like the ups and downs of the business world. And then a lot of crazy girls. Like I didn't attract like the normal girls. It's like the girls I attracted were super, super dedicated and like writing every week, like saying the craziest shit. I mean, I would find the normal ones. It's only like the super crazy. Because they're writing into someone they don't know. Exactly. Right. Yeah. It was like,

- Not a ton, but the ones I got were like super hardcore. - Yeah, let's get married. - Yeah, let me send you money, baby or daddy, like you know, go get married, like I'll have your kids and like blah blah blah. Like I'm so scared. - Well hopefully they like sent you nudes or something, right? 'Cause you need that in there. - We weren't allowed to get nudes, but I got a lot of the, you know, mirror selfie pics that were. - Oh, okay. So what, they look through your shit and they're like, oh there's a nipple. - Yeah, oh yeah, they look at every piece of mail and pictures that come in, no nipples, and then like throw them away, but then I would just give the pictures out to the other guys.

I was so bad, I would give the letters and pictures to like guys who had been in jail forever and they would write them. It's like, hi, I'm Mark. Like I'm currently incarcerated with Billy. You know, I've been here for 18 years, but I love your letter. Like, can we talk? Right, right, right, right. These girls are probably like, what the fuck? Charity work. Charity work. Charity work for your friends. Making introductions. Yeah, so, okay. I do want to talk about the new tech company. Yep. So I want to hear if you like this. You basically go on the app

We're calling it mate, like M-A-I-T. And the concept is you describe your ideal boyfriend, like everything from like job, humor, height, weight, hair color, eye color, you know, body type. We design like an AI picture of him. Once it's good enough, we use like click okay. And then we find five people in your city that look just like him.

And the whole thing is like, we turn your dream person into a reality. Wow. So it's like, I want a banker who's 27 with like long brown hair and blue eyes who likes basketball and likes chess. Like, all right, here's five of them right now who are your age in this market. And then like, here's how you meet them. I think that's genius. Brilliant. I think...

both men and women are going to love it. I think men are gonna love it a little bit more. - Can we talk about you testing this app in a couple of weeks when it's ready? I think the content will be hilarious. Just like. - A thousand percent. - Hell yeah. - I'm already starting to think of like, what's my perfect guy? Like I have some ideas.

And then what? And then I get to just get in contact with them. So basically like we just like give you all their like, you know, email socials and everything that we want to have a feature where it's like I come up with a crazy date concept for you guys to and like make the connection happen. So shit that I will pay for a wild date with you and whoever one of your five matches are and like give you guys a great night. So use me for that. But I think it'll be fun as hell. Yeah. You know what you should do is have the

- I want to see that girl be blindfolded when she talks to all of them 'cause they all look the same. - Interesting, interesting. - And then she can pick their personality, right? - That's a good idea 'cause we all know they're gonna match the looks of your ideal person already. That's super smart. - Yeah. - That's cool. - So what, all these people have to submit their photos? - Yeah, so working on it now, launching in a couple weeks. - Can I submit mine? - For sure, no, you're gonna use it. You're gonna tell us who your ideal person is

And then, yeah, and we'll find them for you. Can I invest? I'm not allowed to raise money, but like come use it. Come use it. I was going to say. Don't give me money, but just come use the platform.

Okay. Well, Billy, this was so incredible. Thank you so much for coming on. The app is going to be called what? Mate M-A-I-T. M-A-I-T. Yes. I love it. That's amazing. I'm sorry you can't travel. You're on bail. Yeah. New York is, we're about to have a beach. Why have they not hired me to do the festival for the New York beach? I don't know. Kick this thing off right. Come on, guys. I

- I don't know, Billy. - Your boy's here, I'm stuck here, let's make the best of it. - I mean, you have your Fyre Festival 1.5 coming out. How many people do you think will buy tickets to that one? - I'm just gonna give them all away. Make it like 500 people and like something doable, but like still amazing, yeah. - Do you think people will still go even if it's free?

That's a good question. I think like, just cause it's gonna be such a cultural thing. Like let's see how bad he fucks this one up. And people are going to probably come in like with the intentions of like they're backpacking across the United States. Right. All right guys, like bring her survival gear, like bring every fucking camera we can get and like, just like get footage to sell to Netflix and then fucking this one up. So yeah. Yep. Oh well. Okay. Well, Billy, you're the best. Um, where can they find you? Uh,

At Pirate Billy, P-Y-R-T. P-Y-R-T, which is your other company, which we didn't get into, but. Next time. It sounds like you are killing it. And you guys know where to find me. Sophia with an F, Franklin with a Y, and I will talk to you next week. Thanks so much, Billy. Bye.