The first things to do are: Girl you know it’s truee is not Milli Vanilli in the movie. That said, the biopic, which hits streaming and some theaters on Friday, is more than just lip service and going through the motions as it tells the story of one of pop music’s most infamous chapters. In fact, it’s more compelling than any of the Milli Vanilli biopics (currently sitting at a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes).
Of course, part of the credit for that goes to producer Fab Morvan, one half of the photogenic duo whose 1989 hit with “Girl You Know It’s True” and ” A hit with dance floor hits like “Blame It on the Rain,” he knew the story better than anyone.
The problem, of course, is that neither Morvan nor his best friend Rob Pilatus sang on the songs, which were produced by German disco master Frank Farian and sung by American singers in Munich.
Just as they conquered the charts, Rob and Fab’s performance fell apart, culminating in an embarrassing win for Best New Artist at the 1990 Grammy Awards (well, at least Little Richard seemed happy for them) , and in a press conference a few days later, they admitted it all and gave up their trophy.
Pilatus continued to struggle with drug addiction and died of an accidental drug overdose in 1998. But Morvan, now 58, persevered. He lives in Amsterdam with his family and fully accepts his relationship with Milli Vanilli. He is right 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, thanks to music. It saved my life. It was hard for me to want to do that at first. After everything I’ve been through, why would I do this? But then a voice said, “Just do it.” You couldn’t separate yourself from Millie Vanilli. You are Millie Vanilli.
Do you play Milli Vanilli songs?
day to day. I started working with John Davis, one of Milli’s original singers. [Davis died in 2021 from COVID-19 complications.] Then I have the music director, orchestra, background singers, rehearsals. Before you knew it, I was touring festivals in Europe. Now, I’m so excited because the movie is coming out and people are finally able to step into Rob and Fab’s shoes and understand that we didn’t plan everything ourselves.
Whatever happened to investigative journalism? What happened to the oath to investigate everyone? That didn’t happen. Why? Because music industry moguls like Arista and Clive Davis wouldn’t let that happen. They are too powerful. So if you fight those people, you may not be able to work in this town anymore. This is what happened to me. I’m Blacklisted They made over $300 million with Milli Vanilli in just two years.
How much money did you and Rob make from Millie Vanilli?
Compared to what they did? there is nothing. That’s what I’m saying. Because in the end I didn’t get paid. I tried to sue Frank but got nothing. By the way, to this day I don’t get paid a penny for anything I see on YouTube. Not a penny was shared from the 240 million views of “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You” or the 180 million views of “Girl You Know It’s True” on YouTube.
Have you never gotten a percentage of record sales?
There isn’t any. Maybe the first six months. There were no lawyers or management to guide us when we signed these contracts.
The film succeeds in making you and Rob sympathetic. Your friendship was deeply touching—and lasted until his death.
When I came to Germany, I didn’t speak German very well. So Rob is like my shield. He protected me. People took advantage of me. My fee for performing was 200 euros, and because I didn’t speak German very well, the boss would try to pay 50 euros. He supported me and then as we grew up, because he was two years older than me, he was my older brother.
As we grew into Milli Vanilli, Rob became our spokesperson. So Rob had to actually tell the lies, too. And, he was adopted. He lives in an orphanage. Psychologically speaking, something happened to him that didn’t happen to me. He wants to be loved. So when the love started to leave, the emptiness inside him reopened. He started taking drugs because he was completely disillusioned. Things got so bad that Rob once threatened to commit suicide by jumping from the balcony of the Mondrian Hotel. This is a cry for help.
There are a lot of drugs in the film. Did you take drugs too?
I did it. But it hindered my ability to perform, so I thought, “No, I don’t want to do that.” I was an athlete when I was younger, so I didn’t feel like that was good. I want to do my best. I feel happiest when I’m on stage.
Your look is visually striking, especially the shoulder pads. Like two triangles on the stage. Whose idea was that?
I grew up in France, so I’ve always been into fashion. There was a German opera singer named Klaus Nomi who wore these structured jackets. I thought, “Wow, this looks cool.” So we had shoulder pads in the jacket, but we asked to make them bigger. Like, “Oh, that looks cool. That’s the vibe. And then we had the hair. We did everything styling-wise. It was all us.”
There’s a scene in the movie where you’re looking at a bulletin board filled with different rock stars. You say to Rob, “What do you see? They all have incredible hair. And then you get to grow your hair long. Is this really happening?”
This is poetic license. The true story is that we were hanging out over Christmas watching a BBC documentary starring the biggest pop stars. It’s about the stars. Then we noticed that Marilyn Monroe had an iconic hairstyle. I knew the Beatles because of their hair. I knew Elvis, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, etc. john travolta in movies grease. So let’s go get some braids. Over the course of two weeks, gosh, other people in the club were jealous of course, but the girls were like, “I love it. It looks good on you.” We were inspired by it.
Is it hair extensions or your real hair?
This is hair extensions. Later, I shaved my head. I’m running away from Millie Vanilli. But when I started performing these songs again, I thought, “Yeah, that might be cool.” So I grew these braids. But this time I won’t put anything fake in it.
How did you learn to lip-sync? Because you did a very, very good job.
Do you know how it came about? When Frank sang “Girl You Know It’s True” for us, Rob said, “You rap. I’ll sing the chorus. That’s how we sliced this thing up, and we stayed with it. I’m the rapper, and Rob’s the urban guy.” Rapping is a lot of work. My goal is actually to master it because I don’t want to get caught.
Did you ever reconcile or talk to Frank after the Milly Vanilli debacle?
No, I took it upon myself to forgive Frank and free myself from negative thoughts. It hinders me and my energy. After that, I was able to express myself better.
He’s not a nice guy, right? I mean, he never took responsibility for what he created or what happened.
no way. He never did. He never said sorry. No one does this. No one on the label did that either. They took the money. Even if label executives were interviewed today, it would be difficult for them to say something like, “Yeah, we know. Everybody knows. They just can’t say it because they’re still loyal to the old regime.”
So does Clive Davis know that too?
Yes. When we come to America, we know how people view us as soon as we open our mouths. They will think twice. “They sound very different from what we expected them to sound.” I know that look. So every executive knew it, and certainly Clive Davis knew it, but they decided, “Hey, it’s going to sell like hot pancakes.”
I remember going to an awards ceremony [show] We jumped in the limo with the broadcast people and the main guy said, “Man, with you guys, we don’t have to do anything. It’s incredible. I’ve never seen this. You guys are incredible. We don’t have to do anything.” Do it! I didn’t know what that meant at the time. Now I understand. You really had to push a record for it to take off. But Millie Vanilli was really, really sexy. [Davis did not reply to a request for comment.]
You were not the only dance group in Europe to suffer from a lip-syncing scandal at the time. Black Box (“Strike It Up”) features a female model lip-syncing to Martha Wash’s voice.
What happened was that in Europe we didn’t speak English very well, but the producers set their sights on the American market. So how did you enter the US market? You bring together European, good-looking people. Then you see a retired American or British singer, or one that just doesn’t seem like the right fit. You glue it together and boom. Because there was no autotune back then. After us, there was Mary J. Blige and Boys II Men — all kinds of groups who were told, “You want a record deal, you have to sing. No.” That lip-syncing crap. Now you have artificial intelligence, you have auto-tune, and it goes back to, “Don’t worry about singing. We have all the software possible.
What are your memories of coming to Los Angeles from Munich?
Oh my gosh, listen—the Marmont Bar and the Roxbury, those two places, I met everybody. We’re talking about Axl Rose, we’re talking about Rod Stewart. This is incredible. David Lee Roth said, “Man, I love the way you move, man.” I actually copied one of the moves we did in the Van Halen film when he lifted his leg. We hung out with Sam Kinison. Man, Sam Kinison is so cool in China Club. That’s just love. I’m sure they knew what was going on, but they said, “This is the industry.” I mean, what are you going to say? We all know that we are just pawns in a machine. “Good luck to you, I wish you the best and I hope you come out alive with this.”
do you remember to do it Arsenio Hall Show? I remember him saying bad things about Milli Vanilli.
Yes, he swears. He let the cat out of the bag. vivid colors Also doing the same thing. Then Arsenio gave us a chance. He said, “We’re going to give you a 30-day promotion. At the end of the 30 days, let’s see how you did. He took us in for interviews and performed live. We killed it. That’s what I did personally, too.” Rob was not in good health at the time and he was like, “Why are we doing this? ” I was like, “Yo, we gotta do this. We made all these songs. We made an album. Let’s go prove it to the world.” That episode was one of Arsenio’s highest-rated shows.
