In his opinion, he and Rob Pilate were “thrown to the wolves.”
With “Girl You Know It’s True” Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus became superstars as Milli Vanilli. The friends met in Munich when they were young and worked as club dancers in discos – until music producer Frank Farian discovered them. He marketed them as the musical duo Milli Vanilli in the late 80s and his work paid off. Morvan and Pilatus sold millions of records, performed to huge crowds and also won a Grammy in 1990. In the same year, the beautiful bubble burst again. When the tape stopped at a concert and the audience saw that the two were only performing for playback, it became clear that they were not actually singing themselves. A few days later, Frank Farian revealed that Morvan and Pilatus were actually not the faces of the voices heard in Milli Vanilli songs – and a shitstorm broke out. In a new interview, Morvan remembers the time.
In an interview with the “dpa” he says looking back: “We were thrown to the wolves. In a sense, we were the scapegoats, and everyone else shirked their responsibility.” He is alluding to the fact that the industry knew exactly what they were doing and still brought the two newcomers into this delicate situation.
Everyone knew?
When asked by the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” why the two young men got involved in the fake game, ex-Milli Vanilli member Fab Morvan said today: “I was young and needed money, so of course I signed enthusiastically when I was offered a record deal. I had no way of knowing that in the end I would never be allowed to sing myself. In general: the contract was in German, so I didn’t understand a word of it. But even Rob didn’t realize that we were committing to Frank Farian not just for one song, but for three albums. When it became obvious at some point that we would never be allowed to sing, we wanted out. But to do this we had to pay back the money we had already received and spent. So, in order to earn more, we decided to work a little more for Farian. But then success came and everything spiraled out of control. Suddenly we were leading a life that would otherwise never have been available to us. We were celebrated and showered with love from the fans. It became more and more difficult to avoid it. But we were never really happy.”
Even the record company and management in the USA are said to have known about Farian’s fraud, Morvan continued in the interview. He explains: “I still have an accent today, I’m not American. That’s obvious. And back then I definitely had a French accent and Rob had a Bavarian accent, which is even more badass. When we landed in New York City and sat down with the leaders, they knew.”
“We made a pact with the devil”
To this day, Fab Morvan is surprised that people and especially the media haven’t questioned the scandal. In the interview he talks about cheating as an addiction. In his opinion, they were all addicted to the love of the fans and the recognition and attention that they hadn’t received much at home.
Rob Pilatus once said at a press conference: “We have made a pact with the devil.” After the scandal, he struggled with drug addiction and died of an overdose in 1998 at the age of just 33. Morvan still works as a singer and songwriter and has four children.
Anniversary and Milli Vanilli biopic
The film adaptation of the story will be released in cinemas on December 21, 2023 under the title “Girl You Know It’s True”. Director Simon Verhoeven has cast Matthias Schweighöfer as producer Frank Farian. Tijan Njie and Elan Ben Ali play Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan.