It may not be the most auspicious way to start an interview, but I have to ask: Fab, is it you reading your audiobook? Please confirm you aren’t just a pretty face hired to front it?

Fabrice Maxime Sylvain Morvan considers my question, then laughs. I’m teasing: it definitely is Morvan narrating You Know It’s True: The Real Story of Milli Vanilli. But as the recording of his book has been nominated for best audiobook, narration and storytelling recording at the 2026 Grammy awards – and Milli Vanilli are the only winners to have had their Grammy (given in 1990 for best new artist) rescinded, due to the revelation that the duo didn’t sing on their records – I do need confirmation.

“It’s all me,” a smiling Morvan says. “I co-wrote the book with Parisa Rose, a journalist with the Los Angeles Tribune, and throughout I have been as truthful as I can possibly be.”

Truth and lies feature through Morvan’s memoir: as half of Milli Vanilli he enjoyed pop stardom while living a lie, before being skewered by those demanding the truth. Almost everyone aged over 45 will probably have some memory of Milli Vanilli, so popular were they between October 1988 and November 1990: with three US No 1s, and more than 37m singles and albums sold in 1989 alone, they were positioned alongside Michael Jackson, George Michael and Madonna as pop’s most popular performers.

If 1989 was Milli Vanilli’s annus mirabilis then 1990 proved their annus horribilis: after their producer/svengali Frank Farian admitted they were “non-singing performers”. The duo were “cancelled” in today’s terms – Grammy rescinded, recording contract denuded, intense media and public opprobrium. Class action lawsuits under US fraud protection laws were served, while TV comedians ridiculed the photogenic performers.

“It was an awful experience,” says Morvan, a youthful 59, speaking from his home in Amsterdam. “People hated us. And when we gave our press conference [in November 1990] after Frank had told the world our secret it felt like we were met by a media lynch mob.”

Footage of the press conference makes for uncomfortable viewing: a baying crowd of predominantly white journalists shout questions and accusations at the duo, treating them like criminals. Morvan remains largely silent during the interrogation, seemingly shellshocked. His Milli partner, Rob Pilatus, tries to defend their position, stating: “We were poor, living in the projects – have you ever lived in the projects?”

No mercy was shown, and Pilatus and Morvan were left to suffer outrageous fortune’s slings and arrows. Pilatus never recovered, dying of an overdose, aged 33, in 1998, his post-stardom life being marked by addiction and a short spell in prison. His death might have signalled the end of one of pop’s most notorious stories, but instead, in recent years there has been a reconsideration of Milli Vanilli: both the exuberant Europop of the recordings, and the duo’s high-energy performances (“We choreographed everything,” says Morvan, “and danced until our shoes were full of blood”). Alongside this new appreciation, plenty have asked the question: did two young Black performers, ruthlessly exploited by white record executives, deserve such public humiliation?

The reconsideration began with Luke Korem’s excellent 2023 feature-length documentary Milli Vanilli (currently streaming on iPlayer), followed by the 2023 German biopic Girl You Know It’s True (streaming on Prime), a far more engaging effort than recent hagiographic treatments of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. The interest these films generated encouraged Morvan to write his take on the story.

“For the book I went all out because the truth will set you free,” says the French-born Morvan, his English fluent after years in Los Angeles. “People get sick from stress, from holding things inside – I know this from experience. My partner Tessa told me, ‘You have to tell the whole truth,’ but I’d been holding back because I didn’t want to throw Rob under the bus.

“But, at the same time, I had to free myself and tell my story. It’s a combination of things – a dream and a nightmare. I experienced both. As Rob is no longer here, I wondered how could I communicate with him and I thought I will write him a letter. And that is how the book starts.”

Morvan’s book describes his upbringing in a dysfunctional, Parisian Guadeloupean family, and then follows his teenage relocation to Munich (seeking work as dancer and choreographer), where he encounters Pilatus. Their athletic beauty helped the duo find work dancing for German pop singers and hosting club nights. They decided to form a band and were introduced by a local musician to Farian, a Frankfurt-based music industry magus responsible for Boney M, among others. Farian had already recorded Girl You Know It’s True with vocalists, but his problem was they weren’t remotely photogenic. Upon encountering Morvan and Pilatus, Farian proffered a contract.

Morvan’s German was poor, so he couldn’t read the contract. But Pilatus, who was born to a German mother and US GI father (and initially raised in an orphanage), insisted they sign it. Morvan says he and Pilatus believed they would sing on their records; Farian, who died in 2024, had denied this, saying he employed them solely as performers. With a Faustian contract signed, the duo set off on the road to fame, if not fortune.

“I’ve never received a cent from those millions of records and CDs and tapes that Milli Vanilli sold,” says Morvan. “And today our streaming numbers are huge, but the contract ensures we get nothing.”

Farian had used similar tactics with Boney M: Bobby Farrell, the quartet’s frontman, was a dancer who never sang on the act’s records. By 1988, with Boney M’s European chart success long over, Farian was desperate to unleash Milli Vanilli: Girl You Know It’s True initially broke in Germany, before reaching the top three in the UK and US.

Clive Davis, then the US’s most powerful record executive, signed Milli Vanilli to his Arista label, and soon the duo’s videos were on high rotation on MTV. With Farian working overtime, Milli Vanilli scored hit after hit. Morvan and Pilatus rocketed from poverty to penthouse: in Munich they had shoplifted food; in Beverly Hills they drove Ferraris. Blasted on cocaine, Pilatus declared himself in a Time interview the new Elvis Presley, and more talented than Paul McCartney.

Yet rumours circulated suggesting the duo weren’t the ones singing the songs – due, in part, to the fact that both spoke heavily accented English. At a 1989 concert in Bristol, Connecticut, broadcast live on MTV, the vocal tape for Girl You Know It’s True started skipping, and Morvan and Pilatus were forced to flee the stage. And then, in early 1990, they won the Grammy.

“The thing is, we never wanted to win it,” says Morvan. “Because the criteria for the Grammys is that you have to sing on the record. And we didn’t sing on the record. We go to the show and were moved to what is called the ‘camera seats’. I realised we might win and my heart started racing, and then, when they called out our name, something exploded in the pit of my stomach.”

The end was nigh when the puppets turned against the puppeteer, demanding more money and insisting they sing on their sophomore album. When Farian refused to compromise, the duo threatened to work with a new producer. “But Frank was always two steps ahead of us,” says Morvan.

Farian promptly held the now notorious press conference and revealed all. “Hoax” shouted a headline in the LA Times. Radio stations removed Milli Vanilli’s songs, MTV dropped their videos, Arista deleted their album. “Lies take the elevator while truth takes the stairs,” reflects Morvan. “I knew at some point truth would catch us.”

The duo soldiered on, releasing the Rob & Fab album in 1992 on a tiny record label. Here, they shared the vocals while Morvan co-wrote most of the songs, but the public was unwilling to forgive them and the album sold poorly. Pilatus fell deeper into addiction, while Morvan focused on a solo career as a singer-songwriter, paying the bills by teaching French on the side. The duo did reunite with Farian in 1998 in an attempt to help the struggling Pilatus, but he died before anything developed. “I believe he died of a broken heart,” says Morvan. “He had been abandoned as a baby and he now felt abandoned as an adult.”

Morvan relocated to Europe 16 years ago, met Tessa, a Dutch woman who had no idea of his past, and started a family. Today, as well as releasing his own music, he now owns the rights to the name Milli Vanilli: “For a long while I wasn’t allowed to use it. Now I’m playing concerts to thousands of people with a band and me singing, no backing tapes.” Morvan wants his book to serve as a warning of how ruthless the music industry can be.

“In French we say ‘avec le temps’ [with time]. People now realise how we went so high then dropped so low.” He shakes his head at the memory, then smiles and says: “I’m a lucky guy – I love my partner and four children and I love what I do. I’m not bitter. I feel blessed.”

If, this week, Morvan again wins a Grammy it will signal one of pop’s most remarkable resurrections. And if he doesn’t, he has already pulled off a larger victory, the marionette who became his own man.

• You Know It’s True: The Real Story of Milli Vanilli by Fab Morvan and Parisa Rose is published by the Los Angeles Tribune.