″We don’t want to live like this.”įarian blamed the duo’s cocky attitude while the men blamed Farian for taking advantage of them.Įventually, Farian’s statement came out first, saying the guys had set an ultimatum. Don’t do this anymore,’” Pilatus told the Los Angeles Times. “We said to Frank Farian, ‘You don’t let us sing on the album. Pilatus and Morvan pressed Farian to let them showcase their true vocals and that’s when everything unraveled. Oddly, they weathered that 1989 performance and went on to win at the AMAs and Grammys in 1990. They demanded to sing on their next album I told him to get open the door, and I just had to talk to him, saying, ‘They’re here to see you perform and you’re doing such a great job - don’t let this stop you from giving fans what they want.’” I quit.’”īut Brown knew what she needed to do: “Backstage it was hell-raising. “I couldn’t repeat it 15 times, so I stopped, I panicked, I went off stage.” He said Brown went running after him. “They ran offstage, punched in the chest and locked themselves in their tour bus,” former MTV director of on-air talent Steve Leeds added to the Billboard story. They guys were caught looking like they were ready to start, but with no voices to go along with that. During a Milwaukee stop of the tour with 22,000 people, Milli Vanilli’s vocals simply didn’t come on. Milli Vanilli definitely brought that to them.”īut there was already some foreshadowing that this was risky business in front of such big crowds. That was the fun of that whole clubby vibe. They wanted to see you perform and touch you. “It wasn’t so much about who had the best voice, just as long as you could perform and give the audience exactly what they wanted. “Everyone was singing to track on that tour,” MTV VJ and Club MTV host Downtown Julie Brown told Billboard.
Plus, in that era, it wasn’t unusual for singers to lip-sync since the live demands of running around a stage could get in the way with vocals. With that level of confidence, it’s no wonder they were comfortable getting up in front of a live crowd and performing. “They became believers in their own false story.” Despite being common for musicians to sing to track on tour, a broken single gave away Milli Vanilli's lip-syncing secret “Their egos were so big, because they were such big stars, that they were like, ‘We can sing, no problem,” Wieger said. Having gone through the rags-to-riches rise so quickly, even Pilatus and Morvan got caught up.
After all, they had the looks, moves and charisma - they were just lacking the vocal talent that it was all built on.
The duo did an appearance in Los Angeles where they were mobbed to the point that the cops were brought in. He had a pretty thick French/Guadalupan accent, so on ‘Girl I’m Gonna Miss You’ he couldn’t say ‘miss,’ and he said ‘meeees.’"īut fans were in love. “I remember there were some words Fab couldn’t pronounce. Their former Arista product manager, Robert Wieger, recalled the situation to Billboard. ″The more we talked, the worse things got.″ ″We didn’t want to do any more interviews,″ Pilatus added. They even had dialect specialists brought in - paid by Arista Records - to try to help the situation. How could these guys have sung the songs?’” Morvan told the Los Angeles Times. “Every time we gave an interview, the reporters would hear my French accent or Rob’s German accent and they’d say, ’No way. In short, they were everywhere.Īnd with that, the suspicions started to come. 1 and “All or Nothing” which peaked at No.
Soon the music video for “Girl You Know It’s True” was a global hit and Milli Vanilli also had four other hit songs - “Blame It On the Rain,” “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You” and “Baby Don’t Forget My Number,” which all hit No. Photo: Ebet Roberts/Redferns Pilatus and Morvan were catapulted into stardom