Milli Vanilli

One of the big European pop acts of the late 1980s/early 1990s, Milli Vanilli were on the verge of superstardom until it was revealed that they didn't actually sing their own songs. Formed by music mogul Frank Farian in Munich, Germany, he spotted dancers Robert Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan in a local club and recruited a team of producers to create a string of hits for them. Debut single Girl You Know It's True became a big breakthrough success across the world, whilst soulful dance pop tracks Baby Don't Forget My Number, Blame It On The Rain and Girl I'm Gonna Miss You all topped the US charts. Album Girl You Know It's True (1989) sold over six million copies and the group won a Grammy Award for Best New Artist, while Pilatus made lofty claims in the media that he was "the new Elvis". The truth was revealed in 1990 that the songs were sung by session singers not deemed attractive enough to front the group, with Pilatus and Morvan left to lip-synch and dance. The duo became a worldwide laughing stock and their Grammy was the first to ever be rescinded in a huge storm of controversy. They attempted a comeback in 1992, this time actually singing on the album Rab & Fab, but it flopped and Pilatus was found dead in a hotel room in Frankfurt in 1998 from a drug and alcohol overdose.

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