Milli Vanilli’s Fab Morvan Reflects on One of Pop’s Biggest Scandals: “We Were Just a Pawn in the Machine”

First things first: Girl You Know It’s True is not the cinematic equivalent of Milli Vanilli. Which is to say this biopic, on streaming and in some cinemas Friday, isn’t just mouthing the words and going through the motions as it tells the story of one of pop’s most infamous chapters. It’s actually more involving than any Milli Vanilli biopic really has a right to be (and currently boasts a 92 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes).

Certainly, some of the credit goes to producer Fab Morvan, one-half of the telegenic duo who shot to fame in 1989 with dance floor bangers like “Girl You Know It’s True” and “Blame It on the Rain,” who knows this story better than anyone.

The problem, of course, was that neither Morvan nor his best buddy Rob Pilatus did any of the singing on those songs, which were produced by German disco maven Frank Farian and performed by American session singers in Munich.

As fast as they conquered the charts came Rob and Fab’s unraveling, culminating in a hella-awkward win for best new artist at the 1990 Grammys (well, at least Little Richard seemed happy for them) and a press conference a few days later where they confessed all and relinquished their trophies.

Pilatus went on to battle addiction and died in 1998 of an accidental drug overdose. But Morvan, now 58, soldiered on. He lives in Amsterdam with his family and has fully embraced his association to Milli Vanilli. He spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about making peace with one of Hollywood’s most cautionary tales.

Hi, Fab. You look exactly the same. 

I take care of myself, and I have to thank music for that. It saved my life. It was very difficult for me at first to want to do that. After everything I went through, why would I do that? But then a voice said, “Just do it. There’s no way you can separate yourself from Milli Vanilli. You are Milli Vanilli.”

Do you perform Milli Vanilli songs?

Day in, day out. I started working with John Davis, one of the original vocalists of Milli. [Davis died in 2021 from COVID-19 complications.] Then I got musical director, band, background singers, rehearsals. Before you know it, I was touring in festivals in Europe. Right now, I’m super excited because the movie is coming out and finally people are going to be able to walk in Rob and Fab’s shoes and understand that we didn’t orchestrate everything ourselves.

What happened to investigative journalism? What happened to the oath to investigate each and every person? That didn’t happen. Why? Because Arista, Clive Davis, the moguls of the music industry wouldn’t let that happen. They were too powerful. So if you went against those guys, you might not work in this town again. That’s what happened to me. I got blacklisted. They made over $300 million with Milli Vanilli in just two years.

How much money did you and Rob make off Milli Vanilli?

Compared to what they made? Nothing. That’s what I’ll say. Because in the end, I didn’t get paid. I tried to sue Frank, and I didn’t get anything. To this day, by the way, I don’t get a cent of everything you see on YouTube. Not a penny from the 240 million YouTube views on “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You” or 180 million views on “Girl You Know It’s True.”

You never got a percentage of the record sales?

None. Maybe for the first six months. When we signed those contracts, there was no attorney or management guiding us.

The movie succeeds in making you and Rob sympathetic. Your friendship is very touching — and lasted right until his death.

When I came to Germany, I didn’t speak German very well. So Rob was like my shield. He protected me. People took advantage of me. I would do shows for 200 euros, and because I didn’t speak German very well, the owner would try to pay 50. Rob was like, “We’re not having that.” He had my back, and then as we grew, because he was two years older than me, he was my older brother.

As we grew into Milli Vanilli, Rob was the mouthpiece. And so Rob had to really speak those lies, as well. Also, he was adopted. He lived in an orphanage. Psychologically, things happened to him which didn’t happen to me. He wanted to be loved. So when love started to leave, the void that was in his heart reopened. He started doing more drugs, because he was totally disillusioned. It got so bad, Rob once threatened to kill himself by jumping off a balcony at the Mondrian Hotel. It was a cry for help.

There are a lot of drugs in the film. Did you get caught up in drugs, too?

I did. But it was hindering my ability to perform, so I was like, “Nah, I don’t want to do that.” I was an athlete when I was a young guy, so I felt like that’s not good. I want to do my best. I felt the happiest when I was onstage.

Your look was visually arresting, especially the shoulder pads. It’s like you were two triangles onstage. Whose idea was that?

I grew up in France, so I’ve always looked at fashion. And there was a guy called Klaus Nomi who was a German opera singer and wore these structural jackets. I thought, “Wow, that looks cool.” So we had shoulder pads in the jackets, but we asked to make them bigger. And it was like, “Oh, that looks cool. That’s the vibe.” And then we had the hair. We did everything on the styling end. It was all us.

There’s a scene in the film where you’re looking at a bulletin board covered in different rock stars. And you say to Rob, “What do you see? They all have memorable hair.” And then you get the long hair. Did that really happen?

It’s poetic license. The true story is we were hanging out around Christmas watching a BBC documentary featuring the biggest pop stars. It was about stardom. And then we noticed Marilyn Monroe had signature hair. I know The Beatles because of the hair. I know Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley and so on. John Travolta in the movie Grease. So we went to get some braids done. And in the span of two weeks, man, of course the other guys at the clubs were jealous, but the girls were like, “I love it. It looks good on you.” We got a bump out of that.

Was the hair extensions or was it your real hair?

It was hair extensions. Later in life, I shaved my head. I was running away from Milli Vanilli. But when I started performing the songs again, I was like, “Yeah, that’d be cool maybe.” So I grew out these dreadlocks. But this time I’m not putting anything fake in there.

How did you guys learn to lip-sync? Because you did it very, very well.

You know how it came about? When Frank gave us “Girl You Know It’s True,” Rob was like, “You do the rap. I’ll do the chorus.” That’s how we divided this thing, and then we stuck to that. I’m the rapper, Rob was the urban dude. The rap was a lot of work. My goal was really to master it, because I didn’t want to be caught with my pants down.

Did you ever make peace with Frank or talk to him after Milli Vanilli imploded?

No. I took it upon myself to forgive Frank inside, free myself from negative thoughts. It was hindering me and my energy. After that, I was able to express myself much better.

He’s not a good guy, right? I mean he never took responsibility for what he created or what happened.

Never. He never did. He never said he was sorry. Nobody did. No one at the label ever did, either. They took the money. Even when those executives at the label are interviewed today, it’s so hard for them to utter the words: “Yes, we knew. Everybody knew.” They just can’t say it because they still hold allegiance to the old regime.

So Clive Davis knew, as well?

Hell yes. When we came to America and we opened our mouths, we knew how people were looking at us. They would do a double take. “They don’t sound nowhere close to what we expect them to sound like.” I knew that look. So every executive knew, and Clive Davis knew, of course, but they decided, “Hey, it is going to sell like hot pancakes.”

I remember going to an awards [show] and we hopped in the limo with the radio guys and the main guy was like, “Man, with you guys, we have to do nothing. It’s incredible. I have never seen this. You guys are incredible. We don’t have to do nothing!” I didn’t know what that meant back then. Now I get it. You have really got to push a record back then to get it to take off. But Milli Vanilli was really, really hot. [Davis did not reply to a request for comment.]

You weren’t the only dance act out of Europe at the time with a lip-sync scandal. Black Box (“Strike It Up”) had a female model lip-syncing to Martha Wash’s vocals.

What happened was in Europe, we didn’t speak English very well, but the producers had their eye on the American market. So how did you get to the American market? You got European, good-looking people together. Then you got an American or an English singer that was retired or that didn’t look the part. You stuck it together and boom. Because back then there was no Auto-Tune. After us, you got Mary J. Blige and Boys II Men — all sorts of groups that were told, “You want a record deal, you got to sing. None of that lip-syncing nonsense.” Now you have AI, you have Auto-Tune, and it’s going back to, “Don’t worry about singing. We got all the software possible.”

What are your memories of coming to L.A. from Munich?

Oh man, listen — Bar Marmont and the Roxbury, those two places, I ran into everybody. We’re talking Axl Rose, we’re talking Rod Stewart. It was incredible. David Lee Roth was like, “Yo man, I like the way you move, man.” I truly copied one of our moves from Van Halen videos, when he’d kick his leg up. We hung out with Sam Kinison. Oh my God, Sam Kinison was so cool at China Club. It was nothing but love. I’m sure they knew what was going on, but they were like, “It’s the industry.” I mean, what are you going to say? We all knew we were just a pawn in the machine. “Good luck and I wish you the best and I hope that you can come out alive with this one.”

Do you remember doing The Arsenio Hall Show? I have memories of him talking shit about Milli Vanilli.

Yeah, he would talk shit. He let the cat out the bag. In Living Color was doing the same thing. And then Arsenio gave us an opportunity. He said, “We’re going to promote you guys for 30 days. At the end of 30 days, let’s see what you guys are made of.” He brought us on for an interview and live-singing performance. And we killed it. I personally did. Rob at that time was not well. And he felt like, “Why should we do that?” And I was like, “Yo, we got to do this. We worked on all those songs. We did the album. Let’s go prove it to the world.” That episode was one of the highest rated shows for Arsenio.