Yes, Milli Vanilli got caught doing lip sync for Girl You Know It’s True on July 21, 1989, at an amusement park in Bristol, Connecticut.
Music producer Frank Farian discovered Milli Vanilli, consisting of singers Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus. He invited to his Frankfurt studio to listen to a demo.
After signing the duo, he was not impressed by their singing and the song recorded after covering from other singers. Studio musicians Charles Shaw, John Davis, and Brad Howell completed the final version of Girl You Know It’s True.
Milli Vanilli watching people get famous for lip synching on TikTok: pic.twitter.com/7IVXYF9AU5
— Miss Steak (@IntelligntSteak) July 26, 2022
While on tour in Spain, France, and Italy, the duo lip-synced to the recorded music. They would ask Frank when they would be able to contribute some (creative) input, and he would answer, ‘Yeah, yeah, but right now we need you to go out and do promotion, Pilatus later recalled. Frank suggested that the duo would be able to do it, simply cooperating with the studio. That is how he led them on.
It had been too long since Frank had released the album, and it needed promotion. He gave $20,000 advance money and said it had a hit before, and they wanted to go along with it.
When they arrived for their initial interview, MTV executive Beth McCarthy-Miller saw that they spoke English well, which raised her first concerns.
On July 21, 1989, a song’s recording jammed and skipped during a live performance on MTV.
Unlike the international release of their debut album, the American edition’s inserts credited Morvan and Pilatus with singing. As a result, one of the three vocalists, Charles Shaw, revealed that he was one of them in December 1989. Shaw reportedly received a $150,000 payment from Farian to retract his claims.
On November 14, 1990, Farian declared the group’s dismissal and admitted they didn’t sing the songs. In a Los Angeles Times piece, Pilatus confirmed this.
Later, the Best New Artist Grammy from 1990 for Milli Vanilli was taken away. They performed singing and rapping for the audience at a press conference to demonstrate that, if permitted, they could sing.
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