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Burned by the Fyre Festival, Restaurant Owner in Netflix Doc Raises $135,000 in a Week

Maryann Rolle is finally getting paid for her work

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Amanda Bell

Maryann Rolle might not have wanted to talk about the Fyre Festival for Netflix's documentary on the infamous music festival gone wrong, but it looks like her decision to appear in Fyre Festival: The Greatest Party that Never Happened is paying off.

In the film, Rolle spoke candidly about her experience being burned by the festival's creator, now-convicted fraudster Billy McFarland. As owner of the Exuma Point Restaurant, Rolle was hired to feed all of the staffers on the island who were brought on to construct the festival site.

"They had every living soul on the island of Exuma who could lift a towel working," she explained. "I had to feed all the staff. Basically that was taking on the whole Fyre operation under my wings."

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Maryann Rolle in Fyre Festival: The Greatest Party that Never Happened

Netflix

According to Rolle, she had to employ 10 people for around the clock shifts to provide meals to the hundreds of workers on site, and when she was left empty-handed by the fest's organizer, she had to dig into her own savings account to compensate her employees for their labor.

"I went through about $50,000 of my savings that I could've had for [a] rainy day. And they just wiped it out and never looked back," she said through tears. "Personally, I don't even like to talk about the Fyre Festival. Just take it away and just let me start a new beginning. Because they really, really, really hurt me. I am really hurt from that. To see nobody return to say let me take care of what she has done. We know she has done right. I just leave it alone because it really pains me when I have to talk about it, so I just wipe it away."

On Jan. 14, however, Rolle decided to circle back to the subject that's caused her so much anguish again and launched a GoFundMe page in hopes of finally securing remuneration from sympathetic audiences of the Netflix doc.

"As I make this plea it's hard to believe and embarrassing to admit that I was not paid," she wrote. "I was left in a big hole! My life was changed forever, and my credit was ruined by Fyre Fest. My only resource today is to appeal for help. There is an old saying that goes 'bad publicity is better than no publicity' and I pray that whoever reads this plea is able to assist."

Rolle went on to add that in addition to the expenses incurred by feeding the on-site staff, the rooms at the resort were also completely booked up by festival workers.

A week after launching the campaign, which has been officially verified by the site, she has now exceeded her fundraising goal, raising more than $135,000.

Rolle may not have been the only one burned by the actions of Billy McFarlane, but at least some good appears to have come out of the competing documentary drops about the failed fest, as they shed light on some of the lesser-known costs of the disaster that were left behind in the Bahamas.

Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened is now streaming on Netflix.