Milli Vanilli's Fab Morvan finally explains why his career ended so suddenly

29 October 2023 , 15:12

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Milli Vanilli's Fab Morvan finally explains why his career ended so suddenly

When Milli Vanilli's music career came to an abrupt end after they were exposed for lip-synching, many were left thinking that record label bosses didn't want to be tarnished by their lack of singing ability.

But now, more than three decades later, it has finally been revealed by Fab Morvan, who was one half of the eighties pop group, that it was due to an explosive fall out with their producer Frank Farian. Speaking to the Mirror, he explained that both he and Rob Pilatus had attempted to join forces with another record label in a bid for creative and financial control - but Frank scuppered their dreams and vowed to ruin their career.

Milli Vanilli's Fab Morvan reveals the real story behind the end of his music career in the early nineties (AFP via Getty Images)

Fab, 57, who has now teamed with Paramount + for a documentary on the duo's career said: "At the beginning it felt like a dream, we came from nothing, there was not much love at home. We discovered how amazing it felt to receive that love. It kept coming and kept coming and then the reality set in and it turned into a nightmare.

He added: "We were working on another situation to cross over and actually sing on the record. Frank heard about it all and said 'no, you're not going to do that. I brought you into this business and I'm going to take you out'. But we pushed him because, we couldn't deal. We thought if he kicked us out we could go start something else but that's not what happened. In the end the label, with which we were about to start something new, stepped back and said 'oh you guys we can't touch you'. In the end we became lepers. We got blacklisted."

At the height of their career, both Fab and Rob were performing to millions of fans around the world and at one point they were committed to performing in 107 in eight months. But according to Fab, this was far too much for the pair to handle. And this, alongside the fact that they were told to not sing on any of their songs, meant that they were forced to keep secrets away from everyone they knew, in order to protect the agreement they made with their record label. But this proved too much for the duo to handle and they resorted to self-medication, which included alcohol and drugs.

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Fab added: "Well the fact is we had to hide secrets and to carry those secrets on our shoulders. The more success we got, the more inward we went. We medicated ourselves as well. In order to cope with blocking everyone from knowing (the truth), (people would say) you don't sound like the record, we were caged. It was a golden cage but it was a cage. The first month it felt good but we wanted to sing from the beginning." He went on to say: "Drinking, drugs, alcohol. We noticed that when you did that you would go somewhere else, it was an escapism. In the night people came to you, at first its free. But after a while it was like 'hey, its not free' that's what it turns into. In that lifestyle it allows you to cope with the situation and you still had to work. It was very difficult to hide but medication allows you to say 'hey, nothing's wrong'."

Milli Vanilli's Fab blames demise of duo's career on producer Frank Farian (Getty Images)

And understandably, their mental health suffered as a result. Fab explained, at that time mental health was not as recognised as it is now and so they had no one to talk to about their restricted situation. He continued: "It was very bad there was no one we could talk to about it because it was very taboo. To say 'hey can you bring in a psychiatrist because we really can't cope with that', they didn't care because it was 'hey, we need you at this time on stage, we need to get you to those 107 cities in eight months, we've got 30,000 people waiting for you so you better deliver'. In the midst of all of that, we didn't know what to do."

Hev added: "In the end we said we couldn't take it anymore which is why we pushed Frank to the brink. He said 'no no you're not going to start anything else. I'm going to go to New York and I'm going to tell them you didn't sing and I'm going to shut you down and you'll be done, over with and you'll be toast'. And that's why Rob who already had problems with drug addiction lost himself, that's the reason why. I'm not the first one that it happened to. I'm just lucky that I was able to recover."

Milli Vanilli is available to stream on Paramount+ UK now

Lucretia Munro