Wondery plus subscribers can listen to the big flop early and ad free. Join Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Wondering it's the 1990 Grammy Awards, and everyone's eyes are glued to Rob Palatis and Fab Morvin, aka Millie Vanilli, the hot new duo out of Germany. Hot is an understatement. These dudes are smokin'not, only because they're physically attractive, which they are. Rob with his jade green eyes, and fab with that dreamy grin, both statuesque dancers. But their music is burning up the charts. An overnight success. Millie Vanilli has sold millions of poppy R B albums, and they're up for best new artist at the Grammys. The duo is about to perform their hit single, girl. You know it's true for countless music fans around the world, but Rob and Fab have a terrible secret. Neither of them has actually sung a single note on their award nominated album. And if they sing live tonight, everyone will hear the truth. This deception is the work of Frank Farion, their producer behind the curtain, pulling all the strings. Tonight, he's pulled one more breaking the rules of the awards ceremony by arranging for Milly Vanilli to lip sync on stage.

The performance goes well. Now they just have to hope they don't win the Grammy, or else they'll definitely get caught.

Here are two former world class breakdancers nominated for Grammys who have become huge international stars with record sales in the millions. Well, girl, you know it's true. It can only mean Millie Vanilli.

It's been a burden that they've carried.

The last 18 months. However, once the album hit, it became such a humongous hit that it just kind of got bigger than the both of them.

Well, maybe they wouldn't have been so disgraced if they hadn't been so successful. They lived a lie, and when the truth was out, they lived in shame. When somebody goes into the store to buy a Milli vanilli album, they expect to be buying an album that is sung by Morvin and Platius. They weren't buying that. We are on a sinking ship from Wondery and at will media. This is the big flop where we chronicle the greatest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time. I'm your host, Misha Brown, social media superstar, and definitely not lip syncing at don't cross a gay man. And today we're talking about the rise and fall of Millie Vanilli.

Hello, I'm Emily, and I'm one of the hosts of terribly famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy. Okay, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No short shorts, free cocktails, careless whispers. Okay, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgley. Yep, that's right. It's stone cold icon George Michael. From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet. Join us for our new series, George Michael's fight for freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all. But behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil. George is trapped in a lie of his own making with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow terribly famous wherever you listen to your podcasts, or listen early and ad free on wandery plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wandery app.

On our show today, we have a comedian, writer, former vine master, and prolific podcast host. It's Demi Adajuibe. Hey, how are you doing?

Hello. Great. Never been called a vine master.

How does it feel?

Strange. I'm conflicted, but I love it. I'll take any.

Good, good. Also on the show today is an actor, podcaster, and author. His newest book, Subculture Vulture, a memoir in six scenes, just hit shelves. It's Moshe Casher. Welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me. And I am also a vine master, but not from the platform vine. I just have a horticulture thing going on, and they're really coming in nicely.

So I guess before we get into the story, what do you both remember about Millie Vanilli before the crash and burn?

I know two of their songs, and I vaguely know the story of what happened, but that's it.

I have to admit that I know everything about Millie Vanilli. This is directly in my generational bullseye, so I know too much. But what I remember is that it's from a time in music where all you really had to be was music and you could become really, really famous. Like, what genre is Milly Vanilli? Is it r and b? Is it dance? Is it Europe? It just feels like it's Europe.

Yeah, I agree with that. All right, well, let's get into it. It's the mid seventy s in Germany, and a young music producer, Frank Farian, is trying to make his mark on the industry. Frank is extremely driven and talented. He produces tracks that draw from his love of black american soul. The stuff he listened to growing up near A-U-S. Military base. Music from artists like Little Richard and Otis Redding, for example.

Just so the listeners know, because this is an audio medium. Frank Faria looks like if Dracula did cocaine, I guess, is how I would describe it, if Dracula was doing lines.

What are we doing tonight, my boys?

I'll tell you what. I want to sniff your coke.

Well, Frank wishes more than anything to perform the type of music that he loves, but nobody wants to see that. German record producers tell him that he doesn't have the look, and they advise him to stick with german music. Frank gets a hint, sort of. He understands that he can't be the face of his music, but he keeps producing and releases a 1975 song called Baby, do you want a bump? For the band Bony M, a four person reggae funk group.

Oh, I told you, this is all cocaine related. Baby, do you want to bump? Come on, guys, think about it. Yup.

Bony M. I know the band, but that sounds like a Dracula band. It sounds like a monster mash kind of band.

Yeah, it sounds like Dracula's henchmen. If you don't fear me, you will fear Bony M. Bony M come from the cave.

Well, slowly but surely, the track climbs the charts until it's an actual hit. And people, they want to see the song performed live. Except problem. Bony M is not an actual band. It's just Frank. He's figured out how to use one of the tools in his studio, a harmonizer, to pitch his voice lower so he can sing the deep baritone lead vocals and higher to sing falsetto female backing tracks. The song becomes more and more popular, but Frank knows there's no way he can perform the song live as mean. Or could he? What could he.

Is there any way he needs to invent a mirror system just like. And now I will go behind the curtain?

The band has a look, though, right? I mean, there are people that. People think Bonnie M. Is right.

Yes. I mean, Frank, the ever problem solver, comes up with a creative solution that I'm sure won't lead to any problems. He puts together a group of black session musicians and models, says they're Bony M, and they start putting on concerts of Frank's music. And it worked for him. Bony M is internationally successful for about a decade. The music is catchy. The band is fun. The concert and album sell very well. That includes a record called Love for sale with a cover photo featuring the band almost naked, wearing nothing but futuristic underwear and chains.

Oh, sure.

Little racist for a white man to come up.

You're telling me that a guy that was mimicking black culture and pretending to be black singers and hiring non musicians to pretend to be musicians had a little bit of racial problematics going on in his marketing material.

I know, shocking. And it wasn't just him. I mean, even american record distributors at the time think it's too much. And use an alternate picture of Bony M wearing 1920s jazz club costumes.

Oh, that's 1920s jazz singing. I don't know if there's anything there that is racist.

We're clean. We got it, boys. We took care of all the racial tension. We're in the 20s. We got it.

It works. The band sells 80 million records. And the lesson for Frank? It's very easy to make millions of dollars based on a lie. And nobody finds out that the band is fake until much later. And there were no consequences. But the popularity of Bony M does fizzle out, and Frank sets his eyes on the next big thing.

Bonnie M got older. They got osteoporosis in those bonies. Guys, this has been really fun to be here.

This has been really good. So in the late eighty, s, r and b and rap are exploding, while disco is more or less dead. And Frank wants to capitalize on the shift and start a new group. So he finds singers who have the right sound. They just don't fit the look. So he's patient. He waits. Meanwhile, two beautiful multi hyphenates, Robert Palatis and Fabrice Morvin, pop onto the Munich music scene. The two are roommates. They're best buds. Rob is german, while Fab is from France. But both connect over being black in mostly white art spaces. And they make some interesting fashion choices. And everyone agrees. They look good, really good. And we have some photos for you. I'd love for you to describe their look.

Long hair extensions, leather jackets, beautiful, piercing eyes. They're kind of playing with a simultaneously hyper masculine and extremely feminine thing at the same time, right?

Yeah, there's like a Lenny Kravitz type thing going on here for sure. Or like those twins from the matrix, if they were hot black men.

Right? It's like Lenny Kravitz if he were sent back in time to kill John Connor.

Yes.

There's a deep terminator stare that insists that they are here to destroy something.

Robin Fab perform as a singing duo in german clubs and do backup dancing wherever they can to make rent. They have a younger older brother relationship and balance each other out. Rob is a brash, confident guy, but mercurial. Fab is quieter, an observer, very loyal. Both have survived rough childhoods and the two dream of making it big. So I feel like these guys are primed for the rags to riches tale.

Yeah, everything's going to go great.

Everything's going to go great.

Misha. Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. These guys make it. Come on.

They are about to get their big break. So Rob and Fab, they get to meet Frank Farian, the producer behind Bony M. Frank and his associategirlfriend Ingrid Ziegith, agree, these boys are stunning. So Frank offers them each 1500 Deutsche mark for recording rights for ten songs per year together. And so for the listeners, that's a pathetic amount of money. It's about $7,000 today.

Ten songs a year?

Yeah, for seven k. That's also a.

Crazy rate because I'm like. That's like saying, we're going to make an album a year, which is so much work.

That's where Frank Ferrier says, don't worry, it's actually not that much.

But, you know, I guess for two young dudes trying to make ends meet, that's a good chunk of change.

Yeah.

So excited and naive, Fab says that he and Rob barely read the contract that day, a decision that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. They toast to the deal, but it's immediately awkward. According to Fab, frank warns the duo, quote, don't fuck with me.

I close every single deal like that, to be honest. Yeah, that's sort of my thing.

Yeah, same. I say it very nice, though.

Yeah. You are sweet. I've heard you. Demi said it to me and it actually makes. It warms you up a little bit. It feels good.

Don't fuck with me. Don't.

So months go by without a word from Frank, until one day they get invited to the studio, Frank's hq, to hear a finished instrumental track. It sounds amazing, super professional and cool, and the duo loves it. But Frank drops a bombshell. He doesn't want them singing. To Frank's ear, they sound, quote, wrong. Rob has a low german bavarian accent and fab sounds too french. So Frank never intended for them to sing. He just loved their look and their dance moves.

He's like, you guys sound like if Dracula were doing coke.

But together we will take over the market.

Robin. Fab will be lip syncing to vocals recorded by american session musicians. And they are pissed. So let's listen to Fab recount Ingrid and Frank's ultimatum on the Paramount plus documentary Millie Vanelli.

If we didn't want to take part, we have to pay them back. But Ingrid said, it's not just the advance that we paid you, but also all the money that we gave you through the month. We developed a debt towards Frankfarian. We're scared as hell.

So, I mean, if you were in their shoes, what would you do?

I mean, you got to just lip sync. You just got to go, all right, this will blow up in our face at some point, but I do not have the $7,000 or whatever.

Well, one of the mysterious questions of this story is, how much did they really know? Like, did they really get fully hoodwinked, or did they kind of make a deal with the devil and know that they were getting into something that would eventually come back to haunt them? It was hard for me to tell.

I don't think you can get out of this deal. Seriously?

Yeah.

Well, it's hard to tell because the accounts differ, but fab maintains that they were pretty hoodwinked at the beginning there. But ultimately, Rob and Fab do agree to Farian's terms. So Millie Vanilli is born, by the way, what do we think of the name Millie Vanilli?

That was going to be my biggest question coming into this, because I'm like, where did that come from? It doesn't sound like a band. It sounds like a pudding cup.

Everything about this band story, people, characters, fashion, dance moves, is so unbelievably european, it can't be quantified. Again, it sounds like a german guy. His fantasy of what a pop band should be called, the way Robin Fab dance. It is good dancing, but it's good dancing through this. I would call it a low german bavarian lens.

It's very October fest.

Yeah, but it's like millennial October Fest. It's modern Oktoberfest.

So, Demi, to answer your question, we do know how they came up with the name Milly Vanilli. It's surprisingly controversial. And to figure out how they came up with the name, let's play a game. So I'm going to ask you some questions about the name Millie Vanilli with some multiple choice answers that you pick from the first question. The word millie derives from what? A manila envelopes, the kind Frank used to hold important contracts. B, the nickname of someone really close to Frank, or C, the german grain mills that surrounded Robin Fab's neighborhood.

I'm going to say the nickname of someone close to Frank, and I will.

Go with the mills.

Demi. You got it. Right. Ding, ding, ding. Frank's girlfriend, Ingrid Ziegeth, sometimes went by Millie. That's where that came from. All right, second question. The word vanilli derives from.

I don't think we need the multiple choice. It's racially.

I'm like. I was like, it's controversial. I'm like, okay, so people are involved, and it's something about being white.

Yeah. Frank Barry is racist. Choice one, two, and three.

Well, you might be surprised. So let's see if you can tell where the word vanilla derives from. Is it a, Frank's favorite cookie flavored with artificial vanilla flavor? B, a play on the word vinyl because Frank owned a test press, or c, it just sounded good and rhymed with Millie.

None of those are racist enough.

I know. It leaves you wanting more, doesn't it? I'll go with the cookie.

Yeah, I'll also go with the cookie.

Actually, it was just because it sounded good.

Damn it.

The rhyming name was an homage to a british band, scriti politi, which itself was inspired by the song Tootie fruity by little Richard.

All right, Europe is on a whole other level of just you and your scripty politi, Millie vanilla. It all sounds like something they're saying derogatorily.

Yes, Demi. Yes. And it also does sort of sound like a soundcloud rapper of the modern era.

It does.

I could see a scriti politi blowing up really big online.

Absolutely.

All right, two more. In early publicity materials, Milli vanilli was said to actually mean, what? A, positive energy in Turkish, b, amazing dream in Greek, or c, unstoppable force in Swahili.

Okay, we found the racially problematic thing. I've got to go with Swahili.

Swahili.

No, that one's down to our writers, because it was actually a positive energy in Turkish. But vanilli is not a turkish word, and manili means national. A 1990 La Times article repeats that millivanilli means positive energy but does not include a fact check. Go figs. All right, one more. When people found out the turkish origin of the name was a lie, they reported that the name came from, a, a consignment shop in Frankfurt, B, a disco club in Berlin, or C, a petisserie in Paris.

Disco club in Berlin.

I'm going to say, yeah, I'll do that too.

Ding, ding, ding. It was a defunct disco club in Berlin.

Let's freaking go.

We got to go dance with the Millie Vanilli tonight.

I will meet you at Millie's. Vanilli's.

We will see.

Frank Faria.

So back to the story. Frank produces Millie Vanilli's first album. All or nothing with Millie Vanilli's signature single, a cover of Girl. You know it's true. A song by a Baltimore band called Newmarks. Fun fact, Newmarks didn't know their song was going to be covered until they heard Millie Vanilli's version all over the radio and tv.

Oh, I didn't know that song was a cover.

Can you do that?

Maybe back then you could do it, but maybe that's. Is this why you can no longer do it?

I think it's like there's a rights thing that you have to pay if you're releasing it as a proper song, but I don't think you have to let the band know.

So, speaking of tv, I'm curious what you guys think of Millie Vanilli's biggest music video. So let's watch the beginning of that. Is it a bop?

It absolutely is a bop. And I forgot that it was.

Yeah, it's always say bop all thing. It feels like it was a guilty pleasure upon release. I remember it not feeling sincere when it came out. Like, it always felt like a thing you enjoyed with a wink, but it was undeniably good.

Yeah. I mean, the single is a massive hit in Europe, to everyone's surprise. So yet again, Frank is the dog who's caught the car, like with Bony M. He didn't expect the song to hit this big enough to be released in the US by distributor Arista Records, home of exec Clive Davis, who takes responsibility for launching whitney Houston, Barry Manilow, and Patti Smith, to name a few. So as their fame kicks into high gear, rob and fab go from being kind of annoyed with Frank to becoming extremely paranoid during photo shoots, live appearances, and meet and greets. The two have no idea who knows the truth. Meanwhile, Frank tries to keep a lid on the big secret. Not even Arista, the american record label that represents Millie Vanilli, knows, or at least they act like they don't.

One of the greatest juxtapositions is when they're in interview. I mean, it's just hilarious because these guys sing and rap like, they're just like perfectly accented american men. And then in interview especially, I think fab does not speak English. He cannot answer the questions in English. Rob answers them in insanely accented German accented English. And fab is just like, sorry, I literally don't know what's happening, but shall I rap? And then just begins to rap in this perfect cadence. Did you phonetically, did you have, like, a hooked on phonics splash card system? To learn your raps, I mean, it.

Must have, which is really impressive, I think.

So the north american album, girl, you know it's true was truly unstoppable. It spawns three number one hits. Girl, you know it's true baby, don't forget my number and girl, I'm going to miss you with an additional two songs that break the top five, every.

One of those songs slaps. And that's right, I said slaps. I'm 44 years old and I said slaps. But every one of those songs is good. This band is good, but they're also very bad. And that's what's so unique and interesting about them.

Yeah, I mean, people agreed because the album sold 8 million copies. Not too shabby. So Millie Vanilli's popularity is skyrocketing. But their pr starts to sputter. Their obvious language barrier, the weight of their big secret and their inexperience all contribute to some awkward interviews, as Mosho is talking about. So let's hear a clip of Robin Fab answering softball questions from a group of kid fans on the Mickey Mouse club. The same changed you personally? And if so, in what way?

Honestly, it changed, you know? No, it changed the most. People say, oh, I'm still the know. But it's a dangerous thing, fame on one side, because people hype you every time and you will recognize that you're famous, that suddenly people don't tell you the truth anymore just to stay with you. And then you, by yourself lose. You lose trust, and you lose the real sense of light.

Is this not an outfit that Queen Latifah also wore on her show?

I also love how incredibly german this answer is. This little boy's like, does fame change you? He's like, fame is a shadow. It is a skeleton of a life that could have been lived but was went down in flames. Fame is a lonely poem on top of a mountain. And the kid is just, like, crying.

The kid's just nodding like he's heard it before. Like, yeah, that's what I thought you were going to say.

Well, despite Rob's attempt at being truthful wherever he can, the pop culture community picks up on some of that fakeness.

Like, this can never happen today, because on Twitter immediately, people would be like, is this real? And there'd be discussion in 15 minutes to be like, who knows? But this is like, we can do this for, like three years because there's no consensus, but you can just go, I think it's real. It's got to be real. Until something breaks publicly, right?

You got to fly to Munich to go cancel them.

Yeah. Well, in 1989, the Millie Vanilli secret was almost exposed. During a performance in Connecticut, the duo is decked out in their usual incredible fashion. Fab is wearing an open black vest and skin tight bike shorts, while Rob has a leather jacket draped over a midriff bearing tank top and matching white bike shorts. The crowd is going wild as they start their biggest hit. Girl, you know it's true. But then something goes wrong. There are different accounts of exactly what happened. Some say a track skipped, looping vocals over and over. Others say a hard drive crashed. But the two were left helpless to perform without it. But whatever happened in that moment, Rob and Fab are caught on stage, most definitely not singing. And they fumble around stage, not knowing what to do or how to keep the crowd engaged. So what do they do? They panic, and they run off stage in the middle of their set.

This story reads like a mythological polemic. Like, the song is called girl, you know it's true. And it is the greatest lie ever unfolded on the music industry. Like, there's something so mythologically tragic about this whole thing.

Yeah.

So they run offstage, and the host of the tour, legendary MTV vJ downtown, Julie Brown, witnesses the moment. And here's Julie recounting the whole thing.

As I opened my door, I saw Rob go flying by. Rob had gotten hold of me to say, I don't know what to know. He was scared. He kind of exploded. It was the moment where it just burst open. And at that time, we didn't know what pressure he was feeling, because we didn't know the load they were carrying.

This exact kind of thing is like the nightmare that you have to imagine might happen once this whole thing starts, which is like, obviously, if their story is true, they kind of got tricked into doing this. I have nothing but sympathy for them because it's like, you kind of know this is going to happen. And nowadays, I think if it happened, everyone be like, oh, everyone is always faking. Who cares? But it does feel a little like, at the time, there was a versamility to performing that it's like we're signing up to see the real thing, and so it's fucking terrifying.

Yeah, it's like what you're talking about, demi. I'm obsessed with that idea of people that walk around with a great lie, that know that someday it's rolling towards them, and the boulder's getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And they know that they will be crushed, but they have to just keep walking because it's, like, the only thing that gives them life force.

Terrifying.

Well, to be fair to Robin, fab at this moment, many of the acts on that MTV tour, they use backing tracks to faithfully replicate fam favorite sounds while also dancing. The mishap is embarrassing, but people don't realize the extent of the deception. Arista execs are now definitely aware that something is up with these two, and they do nothing. So, I mean, against all Sanity, the Milly Vanilli train, they just keep chugging. They're on magazine covers. They're selling millions of albums. They win three american music awards. Everything's going great.

This is after the mishap?

Yeah.

That's crazy.

And so everything's going great until their assistant promotional manager, Tod Headley, digs around and finds something scandalous that Millie Vanilli hasn't been submitted for Grammy consideration. And he figures out how to enter them, and he does. And he's very surprised that his bosses freak out. Do you have any inkling as to why they would be so mad with him?

Because they have to perform at the Grammys?

Yes. There is this rule the Grammys have, and you cannot get around it. If you get nominated, you have to sing live. No backing tracks.

They call it the Milly Vanilli rule.

I believe it's definitely only certain categories, not all of them. So being exposed at a tour show in Connecticut is nothing compared to being exposed as frauds at the Grammys?

Yeah, the poor guy, too, who submitted them in his interview, he's so, like, I just. I thought they were really good, and they'd sold so many records, and I thought, the Grammys are a good award. Why would I not submit them for the Grammy? It's the best one.

Millie Vanilli are nominated for 1990s best new artist at the Grammys, along with the Indigo girls, Nina Cherry, soul to soul, and tone loke. So they must perform live to avoid suspicion. So what's the solution?

If I were there would have just been like, hey, tell him you're sick. Tell him Rob is sick. You cannot perform.

That would have been really smart. You know what? That's the move of a real conniving liar. Demi and I love it. You say, yes, you go, great. We'll sing. It sounds amazing. The day of the ceremony, you go, oh, appendicitis. We're going back to Munich.

You won't know what it is. But we have Covid.

You won't know what it is.

I told you. We travel back from the future to kill John Connor, where we have Covid.

Well, Frank, our creative bad boy, he comes up with another banger. He bribes someone at the Recording academy so Millie Vanilli can perform with playback. So the Grammy lip sync heist goes off without any issue.

Great.

He gets it done. He gets it done.

That's also a good plan.

So this whole situation is already basically getting away with murder. But even murderer Millie Vanilli wins the Grammy.

Ooh, if I'm tone, look, I'm pissed.

Yeah, that's not good, by the way. I almost feel like they weren't happy to win it.

Their speech is Kurt. It's vague. Rob is trying to deflect the attention. Technically, Rob and Fab have taken a lifetime achievement away from hard working singers. So privately and sort of publicly, Rob and Fab are starting to lose their minds. The guilt and fear over their deceit is absolutely crushing. The pair start using drugs freely. Rob's health begins to drastically decline. Weirdly, in spite of their secret shame, the success goes right to their heads. In Time magazine, Rob and Fab kick up a storm by claiming to be the new Elvis. They say that they're bigger than Bob Dylan. And, I mean, to be fair, John Lennon did say the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, but they're right below.

Jesus in the scale. It's like, jesus, Millie Vanelli, Paul Solo, the Beatles.

You don't have to do that. But it's so clearly that they're panicking. They go harder than they need to.

This is them, like, seeing a balloon that should really explode me. Like, fuck it. Put some more air in this thing. I want to see how big this thing can get.

So meanwhile, Frank is working on the next Milli Vanilli album. But Rob and Fab, they're sick of the lies. They want to sing for real this time. They figure we're Grammy winning artists. We've got leverage. So they go to Frank and demand their real voices are featured on the next album. So it turns out that it's not just Frank who wants to silence them. The record label execs don't want them singing either. Big ouch. Another huge problem for Rob and Fab is once they lawyer up to fight back, they realize their original contract, the one where they agreed not to sing, was for multiple albums.

I'm like, is the contract. You can't break the contract and just be like, we're not a band anymore.

If they fight too hard, then their secret is exposed. So, yeah, you just cower in a cave and hope that nobody ever finds out. I mean, these people are being backed into a psychic, spiritual corner where they cannot emerge without being destroyed.

Could they go to the press? Could they just be like, we have been forced into this contract. We don't want to do this. The evil man is Frank.

Let me just say that at this point, I don't want to be controversial here, but this doesn't feel to me like positive energy. Feels like we didn't live up to the name. This is negative energy.

Well, with no other way out, they start slacking off, not showing up to work and demanding more money. And surely Frank will just let them off the hook. No, he schedules a press conference and ruins their lives.

Oh, what?

So Rob and Fab want nothing more than peace of mind and redemption, and they're so close, but Frank beats them to the punch. He outs Millie Vanilli, his own artist, to the Associated Press, USA Today, and the LA Times. Break the story.

What the fuck?

Yeah. Frank admits that Rob and Fab aren't the real vocalists on their albums, and he says he's fired them for being difficult. Wild move for Frank. But he's so confident in his own producing abilities, he's willing to burn Grammy winning artists.

I've seen it. And the tone with which he admits that he has perpetuated a lie on the entire world stage is so breezy and casual. He's just like, oh, yeah, we lie. This not them. They never sing in first place anyway. Okay, thank you, America. You cannot believe how chill he is.

Yeah.

The way that you describe it, it's like he's talking about, like, these actors were difficult over the second season. They're being replaced, and it's like everyone's like, no, half of this is that it's them. They're hot. That's so crazy.

In that interview, he says the music was real and it was great music. I think we have no problem.

My God, that is a guy who is high on his own supply, or as they say, sniffing his own farts, as if the weird nosferatu looking man behind the curtain is who the world really wants to hear from. It's like, oh, no, not the eye candy. Perfect model looking, amazing dancers with chiseled bodies. They can go, it's all about you. The 110 pound german guy with a mullet.

If you want to hear the same stuff, you should listen up for my new band, cutie Patuti.

They are going to be putting out.

Some really good albums.

Well, unfortunately, Rob and fab, they don't get off easy. The recording academy revokes Millie Vanilli's Grammy, a first in their history. The two have no choice but to give their side of the story as they surrender their statues at the most awkward press conference imaginable. But the press, they aren't sympathetic.

I saw that interview and they describe an interview 2030 years later in terms that really do make them sympathetic. They're like, look, we grew up in poverty. We're from the projects. We wanted to make it more than anything. And then all of a sudden, this slick talking devil with a contract in his hand said, just sign this and do what I say and you'll be rich and famous and your dreams will come true. And like, who would be able to say no to that? But there's this kind of shark frenzy that's happening because nobody blames Frank Faria, by the way. No one's like, this guy's straight up. It's pure evil.

That's wild.

Yeah, I mean, slippery Frank, he did get some bad press, but he got okay press as well. The LA Times runs a hugely sympathetic profile of Frank, letting him frame himself as the selfless one, making Robin fab rich with little to no thanks. He says american media paints him to be Saddam Hussein. And he throws out some unsubstantiated claims that the village people, the monkeys, Madonna and Janet Jackson, all lip sync. Ultimately, though, his career is not ruined.

In Frank's defense, I just want to say, he did say, don't fuck with me, and they did fuck with him.

You did warn him.

Well, Rob and Fab, they stay hopeful that the PR fallout will die down and they'll regain credibility. In 1993, the two try to release an album called Rob and Fab with the hopes that they'll sell at least a million records, even just from people buying it, out of curiosity. And they only sell 2000. So Rob and Fab, they drift apart. Fab starts performing unplugged 90s alt rock music with other musicians. Rob goes in and out of rehab eleven times in seven years. At only 32, Rob dies from an overdose. In the Paramount documentary about the Millie Vinnelly scandal, Rob'sister says Frank sends a wreath to the funeral, but does not bother showing up in person.

I mean, do you want that guy showing up at the funeral?

I know, right?

Yeah.

Well, to be fair, he did sleep in the funeral home in one of the coffins. So he was there. In a way, he was there.

He couldn't show up. There was a lot of garlic around.

That's right. It was a garlic based funeral. So let's do a little.

Where are they now? Fab lives in Holland with his partner and children. He continues to sing, sometimes for Milly Vanilli fans, sometimes for fab fans. And Frank? Well, for a while, he was still developing euro dance groups, though he'd never have another hit like Millie Vanilli. Actually, as we were writing this show, he passed away.

Damn.

Stake through the heart, touched by the sun.

We can definitely say that he was an extremely talented musician who produced a ton of bangers. And while his music brought a lot of joy and dancing into the world, his unethical marketing ploys did hurt a lot of artists. But you do have to wonder what could have been had he gone about things differently and just used his skills more fairly.

Yeah, you could just be like a Max Martin type now, where it's like, you produce for a bunch of people. No one knows who you are, but you are a billionaire or whatever.

So here on the big flop, we do like to wrap things up in a more positive note. So are there any silver linings from this tale that you can think of?

I think the silver lining for fab is like a kind of classic silver lining for people who have their lives destroyed, which is, and I know this from my years in recovery, and it's something that I think a lot of people have forgotten, that being publicly humiliated or hitting rock bottom does not mean the end of your life. And you can find a way to get through great pain and get to the other hill where the sun is still shining and the rain is back there. And if you got to blame it on something, you know what to blame it on.

Blame it on the frame.

Blame it on the white guy.

So we were thinking, we found some things that we thought were some nice positives. Brad Howell, Charles Shaw, and John Davis, the real singers behind Millie Vanilli, did eventually get recognized for their talents. The music also, as it spawned a lot of controversy and questions, it also spawned a lot of babies, apparently.

Wow.

Because people reported making love to the sexy music of Millie Vanilli.

But you know, the sad part of a lot of those kids, they did dna tests, and it was revealed that wasn't really their father. It was Frank Faria the whole time.

God damn.

Frank, Frank, Frank again.

Hey, what's the gender of the baby girl?

You know it's true.

So now that you know about the rise and fall of Millie Vanilli, would you consider this a baby flop, a big flop or a mega flop?

Yeah, I put it in the mega. Just. It feels very, I mean, damaging in every way, I think the ability to bounce back makes me a little like, okay, it's good. But it also had such a repercussion for the music industry and for the way that we talk about music nowadays, where I think there are so many things that people just refer to, industry plants. And the idea of lip syncing all this, it's like a sort of thing that everyone acknowledges and feels like, oh, it's all, of course, this is it. And it's like, I don't think that would have happened if it weren't for Milly Vanilli.

And I think Schadenfreud is such a powerful force that you can actually forget that it's actual individual human beings that have had their lives destroyed. And so for every wild story that you get great pleasure in watching the downfall of someone, you forget that it's just a person walking down the street with all of that humiliation. And that's why the documentary was so nice. That fab is like, he has a life that is beautiful. Is he famous? He's infamous, maybe, but it's not a big life. But it's like his partner and him have kids. He got his life back, and Rob is the tragic kind of other way that it can go.

Well, thank you so much to our incredible guests Demi Adajuibe and Moshe Casher for joining us here on the big flop. And thanks to all of you for listening. We'll be back next week to tell the story of the Swan, a plastic surgery intensive reality show based on a fairy tale that was actually a complete nightmare.

Bye bye.

If you like the big flop, you can listen early and ad free on Wondery plus. Join Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at slash. Survey the Big Flop is a production of wondery and at will Media, hosted by me, Misha Brown. Produced by Sequoia Thomas, Harry Huggins and Tina Turner. Written by Anna Rubinova, engineered by Andrew Holtzberger. Our story editor is Drew Biebe. Our managing producer is Molly Gettman. Our executive producers are Kate Walsh and will Malnati for at will media legal support by Carolyn Levin of Miller, Korsenik, Summers and Raymond. Producers for Wondery are Matt Beagle and Grant Rudder. Senior story editor is Phyllis Fletcher. Managing producer is Joe Florentino. Music supervisor is Scott Velasquez. For free song sync our theme song is sinking ship by cake, and executive producers are Lizzie Bassett, Morgan Jones, and Marshall Louis for Wondery. We are on a sinking ship. We are on a thinking ship.