After the dumpster fire that was Fyre Festival, Bella Hadid was called out for her connection to the fest that was supposed to be the next Coachella. Spoiler: it definitely wasn't. The Exumas, Bahamas event, with packages costing up to $80,000, promised luxury but instead provided nothing but chaos.
At the time, Hadid apologized for co-signing Fyre Festival. Despite Kendall Jenner, Emily Ratajkowski, and Hailey Baldwin also being featured in promotional photos for Fyre Festival, Hadid was the only one who apologized for her co-sign. Well, she sort of apologized, tweeting, "I feel so sorry and badly because this is something I couldn't stand by, although of course if I would have known about the outcome, you would have all known too." But, now Hadid's opening up about what she learned from the whole fiasco.
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In an interview for the August issue of InStyle, Hadid said Fyre Festival made her realize she needed to protect herself more when it comes to endorsements. “It’s also a different kind of job that I don’t do very often,” she said. “Now I tag everything as an ad.”
The experience also taught her something about fame in the social media age. Namely, how personal it can get. "I learn new things about myself every day because of the stories that are put out about me,” she said. “They’ll say that I had a conversation with someone I’ve never even met before. Or people will judge me for things I can’t change."
What she also can't change is how people speak about her, which can be a bit soul-crushing. "Imagine that somebody is telling you that you’re a piece of sh— every day on social media," she said. "You kind of feel like, ‘Well, am I a piece of s—?’ You don’t really know."
Hadid told InStyle that sometimes she wants to “go to the house of that random person from Twitter who is in Missouri and tell them, ‘I promise, I’m a nice person! We could be friends! It doesn’t have to be like this!’ But it’s a very strange world.”
Social media isn't all bad, though. Hadid admitted that Twitter was actually how she became friends with Kendall Jenner almost seven years ago. “That was before we started modeling; I was probably 14 or 15," she said. "We met up and had sushi, and now we’re best friends. She’s a pretty significant human I met online.”