Milli Vanilli, of all people, is appearing at Trump’s patriotic Great American State Fair. It took Fab Morvan 36 years to prove he could sing. The whole story.
Do you still know Milli Vanilli? That was the biggest playback scandal in music history. And when it comes to the word scandal, the incumbent US President Trump is not far away. From now on, the two not only share a questionable past, but also a common celebration.
Donald Trump is throwing a festival to mark the 250th birthday of the USA – the so-called Great American State Fair. From June 25 to July 10, the National Mall in Washington, DC is transformed into a 16-day fair: pavilions from all 56 states and territories, a 110-foot-tall Ferris wheel, a restored Smithsonian carousel, plus rodeo, livestock competitions and, of course, live music. The whole thing is organized by “Freedom 250”, the president’s specially founded foundation. The line-up includes Flo Rida, Vanilla Ice and Bret Michaels. But one act in particular stands out: Milli Vanilli.
The very name that has become synonymous with fake singing appears on the program of a patriotic authenticity celebration. In 1990, Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus had to return their Grammy after it was discovered that “Girl You Know It’s True” featured voices other than their own.
The second half of the story
This is where things get interesting – because the story has a second half that ridicule tends to overlook. The person who performs under the name today is Fab Morvan, the survivor of the two, and he actually sings himself.
In the 36 years since, Morvan has worked persistently to reverse the playback disaster. In 1992 the album “Rob & Fab” was released, on which the two actually sang themselves – it sold around 2,000 copies, a commercial disaster, but at least an honest one. Years of solo work and open mics with a guitarist followed: after concerts in front of 30,000 people, suddenly trying to get twenty people to listen. A return to American stages at the end of 2025, a Grammy nomination at the beginning of 2026 – for the audio book of his memoirs, of all places at the same Recording Academy that once took the trophy away from him.
So anyone who sees Milli Vanilli at the Great American State Fair will, strictly speaking, see the opposite of the scandal from back then: a man who sings live because he has something to prove.
Old-fashioned scandal, modern business model
Maybe that’s the real story. In a time when entire bands are generated from nothing using AI, voices are cloned and faces are calculated, the Milli Vanilli scandal seems almost touchingly old-fashioned. Two people who acted as if – that was outrageous in 1990. Today it is a business model.
The question remains who is ultimately more real at this fair: Donald Trump’s hair, the triumphal arch made of pressboard or the man who once didn’t sing and still does today.
