VIDEO VAULT: "Blame It On The Rain," Or The Cruel And Racist Exploitation of Milli Vannili

In 1991, I was an executive with a NYC and London-based company and on a business trip in Los Angeles. Me and my assistant, both of us staying at The Mondrian, were rolling calls in my room when the day took a grim turn. First, we heard sirens, then the sound of running outside the door. Thinking there was a fire, we stepped into the hallway and heard the shocking news. Robert Pilatus, one half of the disgraced Milli Vanilli pop group, had jumped to his death from his room in the hotel. 

When we went to the lobby, we learned from staff that this wasn't quite true. Yes, Pilatus had indeed tried to jump - after taking pills and slashing his wrists - but was talked down by police. He wouldn't be so lucky next time. In 1998, he was found dead in a hotel room near Frankfurt, Germany from a fatal overdose of pills. 

That day in 1991 was the first time in which I didn't regard Pilatus and his Milli Vanilli partner, Fabrice Morvan, as some sort of pop music joke, or a silly footnote in which two good-looking guys with ridiculous shoulder pads shamelessly tried and failed to put one over on the public. Or so it seemed. "It's not funny anymore," I remember telling my assistant. She was similarly spooked and added that we'd probably never know what really went on with the group. Nor would anyone know much about their management, or their record company, Arista, headed by Clive Davis, whose bottom line was fattened by Pilatus' and Morvan's meteoric success. 

Yet a new documentary, "Milli Vanilli," at last pulls the curtain back. And the truth is far darker than I imagined. Morvan, born in France to physically abusive parents whom he ran away from as a teenager, and Pilatus, born in Munich, where he was orphaned and later adopted by a physically abusive white family whom he also ran away from, met in Munich in the late 1980s. They bonded like brothers, both of them impoverished, frequently homeless, but devoted to pop music and dancing. 

In time, they made a name for themselves, and a bit of money, too, by dancing at clubs. Everyone took notice of this stylish, good looking duo who had moves like none other. They even cut a demo, singing all the vocals, hoping to one day become music stars. Anything seemed possible and the money they were earning, though meager, was a godsend. 

In what seemed like a blink, their dreams seemed to come true when a successful German music producer, Frank Farian, promised to make them music's latest pop sensation. They were barely in their twenties. Farian absolutely loved their demo, he told them, and promised to shower them with cash. All they had to do was sign on the dotted line. 

Sadly, they did - hastily, and without looking at the contract's language. Pilatus was later outraged when he learned that they would not, in fact, be singing on their first single, "Girl You Know It's True," but instead would be required to lip-sync - whenever and wherever Farian demanded - for the other, anonymous performers who'd laid down the vocals. If they refused, Farian would ruin their lives. Chilled by his threats - and cruelly manipulated by his business partner, Ingrid Segieth, who claims that she "mothered" the pained, mentally troubled Pilatus - Morvan and Pilatus decided to ride it out. 

Then the single exploded worldwide, and Pilatus and Morvan swiftly turned to drugs and alcohol to cope with the whirlwind. On one hand, they were thrilled by the adulation and cash; on the other, they knew they were living an outrageous lie and headed for a ruinous crash. Pilatus spiraled into a deep depression and started using even harder drugs, and exhibited outlandish public behavior, as when he claimed to the press that Milli Vanilli were "better than the Beatles." 

When they won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist, their world was nearing implosion. In the brutal aftermath of their unmasking, everyone, with the exception of Morvan and Pilatus - who were all but pilloried by the press and public - walked away personally and professionally unscathed, including Farien, who'd concocted and engineered the entire hoax; his business partner, Segieth; and of course Clive Davis, who claimed shortly after to have had no idea that Morvan and Pilatus were lip-syncing. The filmmakers claim otherwise, and, yes, they have the receipts.

I won't ruin the documentary's further revelations, but keep in mind that Farian pulled the same trick with other Black performers before he met Morvan and Pilatus. This includes the successful Euro disco group, "Boney M," in which the purported lead singer, Bobby Farrell, a Black Aruban performer, lip-synced to other vocalists. Even after the Milli Vanilli scandal broke, Farian yet again returned to using Black performers who were lip-syncing. His business model was simple: find young, impoverished Black performers with a "hot look" to front a group, then hire mostly struggling Black session musicians to sing or rap, and pay all of them a modest flat fee without enabling anyone involved to earn residuals no matter how successful the single or LP. In 2006, Farian produced a successful jukebox musical "Daddy Cool," with music from the Boney M catalog. Farian made bank, while the original Boney M performers, including Farrell, made nothing. 

Morvan and Pilatus certainly weren't the first, and likely won't be the last, Black performers to be exploited in such a manner. Notably, in 1990, singer Martha Wash was asked by producers to supply the lead vocal for a demo of their song, "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)," only to see this so-called "demo" released worldwide and her image completely erased from all publicity. Producers instead replaced her with the svelte Zelma Davis, a Black model who lip-synced to Martha's vocals in the music video and in seemingly live performances at the Billboard Music Awards and other venues, sending the song rocketing to the top of the dance charts. 

Wash, at least, had a happy ending, of sorts. She sued the producers and Sony, winning an out of court settlement, and at last received some recognition. But not Milli Vanilli. Morvan is still alive and by all accounts in a happy marriage with children in Amsterdam, but when he speaks about his past in the documentary, you may find yourself with your heart in your throat. The catastrophic pain is just beneath the surface no matter how much he strives to insist otherwise. 

Photo Credits: AP, Getty Images