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Fyre Festival: Fund for unpaid caterer hits £60k

Netflix Maryann RolleNetflix

More than $77,000 (£60,000) has been raised for a restaurant owner in the Bahamas who wasn't paid for catering the doomed Fyre Festival.

Maryann Rolle, who runs the Exuma Point Bar and Grille, says she used $50,000 (£38,000) of her own money to pay other staff who helped at the event.

A crowdfunding page she set up on Monday has had around 2,300 donations.

"My life was changed forever, and my credit was ruined by Fyre Fest," she wrote on the page.

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Maryann features in the Netflix documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened which was released on Friday.

It focuses on the disastrous build-up to the 2017 event - which promised to be a exclusive party full of Instagram influencers, luxury food and music from big stars.

But festival goers turned up to find the site was still unfinished, there weren't enough tents to sleep in and some of the meals provided included cheese on toast.

In the documentary, Maryann describes how hundreds of local workers were asked to help bring the event together.

She says she pushed herself "to the limits catering no less than a 1000 meals per day".

Netflix Fyre Festival tweetNetflix
The most famous image from Fyre Festival was of a bad cheese sandwich which went viral online

But its organiser Billy McFarland failed to pay the staff for their time or resources.

"I had 10 persons working for me just preparing food all day and all night, 24 hours," Maryann said.

"I literally had to pay all those people. I am here as a Bahamian. And they stand in my face everyday.

"I went through about $50,000 (£38,000) of my savings that I could've had for a rainy day.

"They just wiped it out and never looked back."

Netflix Billy McFarlandNetflix
Billy McFarland is currently serving a six-year jail term for fraud

In October, Billy McFarland was convicted of fraud and jailed for six years.

Maryann has received dozens of messages of support on the GoFundMe crowdfunding page which has a fundraising target of $123,000 (£95,000).

One person wrote: "I'm so sorry to see how much this whole experience hurt you and I am so glad that you're reaching out.

"Having to relive this train wreck must've been traumatising and you deserve to get back everything you lost and more."

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