In an exclusive interview with Fab Morvan of Milli Vanilli, BGN chats with the notable artist about his latest project, co-producing the film Girl You Know It’s True.
The story of Girl You Know It’s True follows Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan, who conquered global music charts as the pop duo “Milli Vanilli.” Their fame turned to infamy when it’s revealed the iconic voices behind their hits were not their own, but those of other singers. When asked why tell this story now in 2024, for an incident that happened over 30 years ago, Fab wanted to make certain his narrative was told. In our interview, he is candid about the music industry and how toxic it was for both him and Rob. In one account, he says the duo netted Arista Records $300 million dollars during the height of their career. The revenue earned for the label allowed them to create new labels which we now know today as Bad Boy Records, So So Def and LaFace Records. Ironically artists such as Toni Braxton and TLC suffered a similar fate both Rob and Fab endured when it came to how their contracts were financially negotiated. Braxton went on to file bankruptcy and TLC also filed for bankruptcy in 1995.
Fab describes Clive Davis (head of Arista Records at the time) as “not a good man”. And he went on to say that Rob Pilatus “died of a broken heart”. He also went on to say that Clive Davis knew about them not being the original singers of the recordings all along.
I personally was introduced to Milli Vanilli at the age of 10 by my next-door neighbor, a white girl, who was one of their biggest fans. In the film, there is a scene that notes how the group had a predominately white female base. Fab went on to discuss how they were criticized back in the late 80s for not having Black women in their videos, but as a European he didn’t understand the racial dynamics of the United States compared to where he was from.
Watch our interview as Fab Morvan unpacks a lot of what went down during the days of Milli Vanilli in the video below:
Girl You Know It’s True was released by Vertical and Voltage and is currently in theaters.
