Fab Morvan. BERTRAND GUAY/AFP via Getty Images
Disgraced R&B duo Milli Vanillli is enjoying a resurgence thanks to a 2023 documentary of their story and the inclusion of their music in Ryan Murphy’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.
The renewed attention brought Fab Morvan, one half of the only group to ever have a Grammy Award revoked, back into the public eye. He doesn’t hide from the lip-syncing scandal that doomed his career, along with partner Rob Pilatus.
Despite owning the fact that he and Pilatus were lip-syncing during their live performances and were not the ones singing on their records, Morvan, now 58, feels the duo was “sacrificed.”
“Over $300 million was made on Milli Vanilli, and the money that we generated gave birth to other artists in the ’90s,” he explained to Interview in a story published Tuesday, December 10. “Some people seem to forget that part, but it’s OK. The majority of those labels and the majority of artists that were signed during that time are now either bankrupt, dead, not doing very well, or fighting for themselves.”
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While Morvan and Pilatus endured a public fall from grace, Morvan said that everyone in their orbit was able to profit from the group’s image.
“We paid, and they scapegoated us,” he added. “The executives and producers and the labels were the ones who were able to put their kids through school, buy houses, go up in business, and remain untouched.”
The duo tried to redeem themselves in the ’90s, even planning a comeback tour to promote a new album, but Pilatus died of a drug overdose in 1998 at age 33 and the album never hit shelves.
Morvan can now look back, reflecting on everything they went through during the band’s height, good and bad. He also looked forward, offering his idea of what he wants Milli Vanilli to represent.
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“It was brief, but I feel like I lived the lives of a hundred men during that period, and then after that I lived the lives of a hundred more,” he said. “I want the name Milli Vanilli to symbolize what happens when you fall and then stand back up, reinvent yourself, and fight for yourself. If you give up on yourself, you are giving up on your life.”
He added that, even during the best times, he knew it would eventually come crashing down.
“We always knew that at the end of that tunnel, people would find out and it wouldn’t be pretty,” he said. “I looked at our relationship with the public like a relationship between a couple who love each other, where one of them suddenly finds out, ‘Man, you were cheating on me the whole time.’”