A new documentary takes us behind the scenes of one of pop music’s biggest scandals: Milli Vanilli and their lip-syncing.
True Story: back in 1989-1990, when I was eight years old, I was a major Milli Vanilli fan. I had a cassette copy of their debut album, “Girl You Know It’s True”, and my cheap Walkman almost wore it out. But, when the two were exposed as frauds in April of 1990, like many fans, I was brokenhearted. I remember chucking my cassette tape into the garbage, something pretty much all the kids at my elementary school did. As soon as it came out that they were fakes, they became pariahs and the uncoolest thing you could possibly listen to in the schoolyard.
Of course, the truth behind the Milli Vanilli phenomenon is more complicated. Now Paramount Plus is set to debut an explosive documentary on the duo, which drops October 24th and has just released a new trailer (embedded above). Milli Vanilli was Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus, two dancer-models from Germany who were chosen to front a new band by German producer Frank Farian. Right from the start, it was planned that the two would never actually sing, and to be fair to the guys (and Farian), this was a normal thing for Eurodance pop bands during the era. Bands like Boney M (also created by Farian) also lip-synched to session musicians, and had Milli Vanilli stayed a dance-pop act; no one would have cared that neither guy could actually sing. The problems only started when the two became massive crossover pop stars, winning a Grammy, which they eventually had to return.
The documentary, which premiered at Tribeca, is said to contain some explosive stories and allegations, so as a former fan, I’ll be checking it out for sure. It’s quite the tale, and at one point Brett Ratner was planning on making a feature about it. Indeed, what happened to Milli Vanilli after they got exposed was sad, with the two trying to relaunch their careers using their own voices on a flop album. Rob Pilatus died of a drug overdose in 1998. Despite their infamy, Milli Vanilli remains a staple of 80s pop compilations, so even if they were frauds, people still dig their music decades later.
