The year was 1990 and the Grammys Best New Artist category included a range of genres, from Neneh Cherry and Tone Loc to folk duo Indigo Girls and house music icons Soul II Soul.
And Milli Vanilli.
The pop duo, formed by Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan, were announced as the winners by Kris Kristofferson and Young MC.
In a 2020 interview with Variety, Morvan recalled, “Rob and I hugged each other and celebrated. It may have looked like joy and happiness. But inside it was pure confusion. We knew this would come back to bite us in the butt.”
And that it did.
READ MORE: Is Lana Del Rey Blacklisted From the Grammys?
The duo infamously became the first and only act in history to have a Grammy Award revoked.
The German group was formed in Munich by music producer Frank Farian and soon became an international sensation with hits like “Girl You Know It’s True” and “Blame It on the Rain.”
They became one of the biggest acts of the late ’80s and early ’90s, especially among young girls (e.g. D.J. Tanner and Kimmy Gibbler singing “Blame It on the Rain” in an early episode of Full House).
And yet, it was all fake.
In November 1990, Farian finally revealed the truth: that Pilatus and Morvan had never sung a note on any of their smash hits.
In performances and music videos, they simply lip-synched.
When it came to the Grammys, few artists have ever been permitted to lip-synch during performances on the big night.
“I’d agreed to do it for the first time with Janet Jackson a few years earlier, as their [Milli Vanilli’s] management [the late Sandy Gallin and Jim Morey] threatened to pull them off the show. They were so hot at the time, we went along. But they were good at it — even I thought they were singing,” Grammy producer Ken Ehrlich revealed to Variety.
Farian reportedly decided to expose the truth after the duo expressed their wishes to sing on their next album.
Thanks to the ensuing scandal, then-Recording Academy head Michael Greene revoked their Best New Artist award on Nov. 19, 1990.
“I hope this revocation will make the industry think long and hard before anyone ever tries to pull something like this again,” Greene said at the time, according to Variety.
However, the duo had reportedly already decided to return the Grammy Award on their own, despite the revocation.
They requested the award be given to John Davis, Brad Howell and Charles Shaw, studio singers who sang on the Milli Vanilli album.
In the end, no one was awarded the Best New Artist nod that year.
“We were seduced and very young. We had no life experience. We were riding the wave. It was a crazy adventure. We were getting loaded, trying to escape, constantly in fear of being discovered,” Morvan said in 2020.
“We’ve been carrying this cross for a long time. We’ve been blamed over and over. We were victims of our own dreams of stardom, chewed up and spit out by the record industry machine,” Morvan added.
“My dream was to be a singer-songwriter. I’m able to look in the mirror today and be happy with what I see,” he shared.
As of the 2020 Variety piece, he lived in Amsterdam. Pilatus, on the other hand, tragically died of an accidental drug overdose in Frankfurt, Germany in 1998.
Weirdest Pop Culture Scams Ever
There’s nothing like a good ol’ fashioned high profile scam to keep you fascinated, shocked and entertained all at the same time. As long as you’re not involved in it, of course.
From Fyre Fest to Caroline Calloway, we’ve compiled 25 of the weirdest pop culture scams ever.
Gallery Credit: Jessica Norton
