Doomed to Fail - Ep 222: Blame it on the Rain - Milli Vanilli

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

Read Fab's Book! "You Know It's True: The Real Story of Milli Vanilli"https://www.amazon.com/You-Know-Its-True-Vanilli/dp/B0FP4P554H We're back with the epic rise and fall of Milli Vanilli! We're old enough to remember, and we still delight in their smash hits! But it's obviously also a tragic story of fame, the music industry, race, culture, and creative freedom. We'll talk about our stars Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus - how they found each other in 1980s Germany, rose to superstardom under the heel of the villain Frank Farian, and their very public fall from grace. It's a deeper story than you thought, but girl, you know it's true.  Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

It's a matter of the people of the state of California versus Orenthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do. I'm ready. You're a recording. Taylor's yawning. Hi, Taylor.

I yawned, but I got it out. I got it out. I feel fine. Taylor, let's start off here. It's our first recording in a while. So let's start it off. What has been your favorite horror movie this season? Oh, my gosh, such a good question.

I've watched so many. Let me look at the calendar that our friend just painstakingly put together. We watched three movies on Friday in a row. That's a lot. It's a lot. It was a lot, but it was super fun. I liked, well, I think the scariest one we watched, So Speak No Evil with James McAvoy from 2024.

That's a good one. It's scary. And so I like that one a lot. We watched Smile 2, which I've seen before, but I like Smile 2 very much. Yeah, that one's seen in the living room is really, really creepy. It's so good. Last night, oh, last night you watched The Wicker Man, the one from the 70s, which is hilarious. Red Rooms was actually really good.

That's on Shutter. I like that one. That one was good. headcount was on Amazon and that one is actually two of them are based in Joshua Tree which is hilarious like in a written neighborhood but headcount was in Joshua Tree and like it was like one of those ones were afterwards you're like whoa that was really good you know what I mean like you think about it a lot it was it was good I was like oh that's why all these things happened I think I told you that Frey Waka F-R-E-W-A-K-A that was good too

means roots i looked it up yeah um the one that is stuck into my in my brain unfortunately has been bring her back i didn't see it yet uh i know it is gonna stick in your brain because talks to me the other one that they did the same people i think was really good really good also very scary um but i heard that bring her back is like upsetting so it is it is there there There are some scenes that are, they're just going to imprint on you. It's kind of like hereditary, you know? Yeah. There's some sense of hereditary that you're just like, we'll always remember for the rest

your life. Like, that is what Bring Back does. I watched Hereditary one time at work because I was like, I think I told Jay this and he was like, what is wrong with you? Because I was like super stressed out. It was like the time, I mean, a lot of a time at work when we work together was stressful. But I was like just in a whole thing.

And I sat at my desk and I watched Ferretary at 1.5 speed to calm myself down. And Jay was like, that. That's not how you calm yourself down. I disagree with Jay. I agree with you. So there is some value to watching something you know inside and out. No, that was the first time I'd seen it. Oh, that was the first time you see.

That is kind of nuts. I'm going to go with Jay on this one. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to go with Jay on that one. Yeah. Maybe midsummer I could do. Yeah, maybe. I think I watched my summer at work, too.

I like midsummer a lot. Anywho. How about you? What's your version? I think so I've seen Yeah, most of what you said I've already seen And so I think what I'm going to try and watch tonight

I've been looked at the calendar I should probably just start getting back on the calendar But I was thinking about watching Stop Motion That's good Yeah, it sounds It looks pretty freaky from the trailer And it sounds kind of freaky

So that one looks pretty good I don't know what's on the calendar for tonight Tonight is The Bird with Crystal Plumage from 1970. Don't know. Could be weird. And then stir of echoes from 1999 with Kevin Bacon, which seems fun.

We might make that one. Yeah. Yeah, we might give it once over and see if we can make some of these. Sweet. Do you want to do an intro? Yes. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to doomed to fail.

We bring you history's most notorious disasters and epic failures. And I'm Taylor, joined by Fars. And we are here recording for the first time in quite a while. Taylor, who goes first today? It's always me. You ask every time and it's always me. Nothing changes, huh? No, because we changed it.

So we just, we do it every week now. And so it's me, me, me, me, you. Me, me, me, me, me, you. Got it. That's right. Thank you to everyone who's been listening to all of our re-releases also. It's been a busy couple of weeks, months for us. We've been around, but it's nice to be home.

Okay, I'll get started. You ready? Yes. Oh, my God. I have had so much fun researching those story. I don't even know what to tell you for us. I just, it is, it's been, it's been lovely. And I've been angry and happy and sad and had a lot of emotions. But. Is it going to be a heist? No. Oh, my God. Yes. We can talk about the heist later. Yeah. Okay. This is the story of love, loss, lies, race, culture, class, and everything, everything you want. It's also a post-World War II story more than I expected it to be about, like, the Reconstruction of Germany, denatification, all of that is in there, too. It's also like an American Prohibition, Jazz Age story that flows into it, too. But mostly it's a music story. I'm going to tell you the names of the people in it, and you tell me who they are.

Got it? Sure. This is the story of Rob Politis and Fab Morven. No clue. Those two are. They're Millie Vanilly. Oh, wow. I read this book.

It's so good. Fab just wrote a book came out in August. It's called You Know It's True. and it is so good. It's like short. It's very self-published. There's no apostrophies in it for some reason. And oh my God, I like wrote it.

It was like just lovely. He writes all these like beautiful letters of people who are gone asking for answers but letting them know that he forgives them. And he talks a lot about what happened and how it happened. And it's super interesting. I am shocked that you were tying together so many massive historical benchmarks in a mini-vanilly store. I didn't know until I read this.

And I was like, whoa. And then also I watched the movie Millie-Vinilly that came out a couple years ago as a documentary about it. And then I've just been watching so many freaking Millie-Vinilly videos and listening to their songs. And they are so good.

They're really good. My favorite part is in the beginning of Girl, you know it's true. There's just like little dialogue where the girl's like, he's like, you mean a lot to me. And she goes, I really mean that much to you? And he goes, girl, you know,

it's true. It's so good. And then it goes into the song. It's wonderful. So let me tell you what happened. Everybody, you know, everyone knows what happened, but let me tell you more details about what happened. So we'll start with Rob. Rob Politis, named Robert. He is the one who sometimes wears glasses, if that can help you, if you don't know exactly which one's which. He's sometimes wears glasses. He's a little bit bigger. He also gains a little bit of weight toward the end. So he's like a little bit of the bigger built guy with glasses is Rob. Rob was born on June 8, 1965 in Munich, West Germany. So Rob is a son of a black American soldier and a German mother.

So he's mixed white and black and his dad left to America and his mom gave him up to an orphanage. So he never knew his parents and he had like a pretty rough childhood, like in and out of these orphanages. there were things that were like he so badly wanted to be adopted and like wanted attention that he would like do like kind of weird things when parents would come and like no one would pick him just like very like classic sad orphan story eventually he does get adopted by a German obviously white German family and he has an older sister who is like a biological daughter I think of that family and his sister is in the documentary she's she's still alive And she says some stuff. She was like, I don't know. It was hard for Rob. I don't know why kids didn't accept him. And I'm like, I know why kids didn't.

In Germany. Fucking exactly. That's why. Because it was post World War II. Like, I wrote, World War II was 20 fucking years ago. Parents of the other kids at school could very well have been in the Hitler youth. You can't, you know, we didn't arrest everybody in Germany. You know what I mean?

So, like, there was deep racism there. And you can't arrest an entire country. And there were, there were, there were, there are. I don't know how I haven't looked at it. I don't know how many people of other races there are in Germany. But, like, when you go to Germany, it's one of those places where you're like, oh, everyone here looks the same. Yeah.

You know, like in other countries as well. But, you know, it's, it's like Iran. If you were, I would assume, like, an Asian person or a black person or a white person would stand out pretty big out there in Iran. Yeah, exactly. So, of course, he's going to stand out if he's like the only black person. yeah there and he's an orphan and he's going through all these things so he had he had all that weighing on him as a child um rob is also the one who speaks english with more confidence during press tours so if you watch interviews with milly vanilli like in their like it was only like two years but in their two years of superstardom if you watch their videos he's the one who talks um the most and i love his german accent so much fab doesn't have as german of an accent as rob but i love so this is like, I think it's silly, but I love how when you have a German accent, you say

Germany, your voice goes to a really low register and they go, Germany. You know what I mean? Yeah. I kind of am doing it in my head right now. I think it's so cute. So he has that cute German accent. And also, just to note, everyone that I know that is my age and your age and our age, who is German, which is a handful of people, whose grandparents were in World War II, like mine were. You know, we've talked about it. And we've talked about it in cemeteries in Germany and everyone cried and everyone was like, you know, they talk about it.

But the first generation out, they didn't talk about as much as we do now. You know what I mean? So that must have been just really, really hard. So Rob, both of these guys are gorgeous. So he's like a trained dancer and a model, of course. And by his late teens, he's in fashion shows and small music projects around

Munich. So that's where we'll leave him. He's in his late teens, early 20s. He's in Munich and he's like dancing and modeling living there trying to figure himself out. And then we have Fabrice, who's name is Fabrice Morven, and he was born on May 14th, 1966 in Paris. He is a mix of a couple different races. So there's some Indian, a lot of African, just kind of like a mixed bag. But he grew up in Paris and in Guadalupe, the Caribbean island, because his dad was like kind of involved in construction. So they lived there. They lived in Saudi Arabia. They lived kind of around for a while. Both of Fab's parents were very abusive towards

him, both physically and emotionally. It was a cycle. His dad was very violent to his mom, and his mom was very violent to him. So it was just like a really rough childhood. They had resources. So at one point, Fab was pretty like a sickly as a child. And he went to a like a hospital by the sea for children who were sick in France. So he like would spend summers doing things like that he his dad was like really never around um they knew that his dad was like you know out with other women and then he would come home and he he would fab remembers you know watching his mother cover at bruises with makeup just like very traumatizing um and fab had a couple younger siblings as well um they went on you know they went on family vacations and they did things to have that like veneer of

being a happy family but but they they weren't really um later in fab's teens he starts to take dance classes. And again, his parents don't really care, so they don't care of what he does with his time. So he starts to take dance classes. He does ballet. They're both obviously, like, really, really fit. And he moves out as soon as he can, and he moves to Munich. So Fab is like, I got to get out of here. I don't know what I want to do, but he moves to Munich to sort of like see what's going on and like the dance scene there. So that's where they meet. It's 1988, and we're in Munich, Germany. And imagine how just like

German clubs are exactly what you think that they are. You know, it's like house music and this is like late 80s, early 90s, house music and people are dancing. And Rob and Fabb, they start to kind of be in the same circles, obviously, because they're both dancers and

Rob is a little bit like, oh great, another black guy, you know, because he's like... I'm picturing techno Viking. Have you ever seen this guy? No, but I pictured it in my head. immediately so yes there you go they just that that's all i need yeah but that was i think that was all germany like when you say german dance clubs it is a very particular exactly exactly i mean very techno dance and just like fun and it's fun um and so

rob was their first and he saw fab you know and he's like oh great like this is a competition you know for for me um but they start to have this like silent rivalry um fab started to go he also didn't really have a job so they both kind of like he was homeless for a little bit he but he would go to these clubs and they started to see each other and Rob or Fab would go to the movies consistently

and Rob started to go as well and they were kind of like sitting in different parts of the theater and eventually they got closer together and we're like we're probably stronger every band together you know like in this environment it's probably better to be together and they really hit it off like they started to dance together and they

started to to, like, do, like, club promoter things and make money that way. And they lived together in, like, a shitty little apartment, just trying to, like, make ends meet doing what they did. They did, like, a little bit of modeling. So they're, like, we need to help each other out. One note that I think is important is that FAB moved to Germany without really knowing how to speak German. And German is, obviously, like, Rob's, like, first language. So Rob did a lot of the talking in German, which made him the one that did a lot of the business negotiating, or all.

of it, really, you know? And I wonder if that is something that weighed heavier on Rob than is accounted for in like their history because it looks like they're partners to everything. But Rob is the one who had to make these deals even when, even in the early days and they're just dancing. Because like, for example, if you and I were signing a contract and it was in Farsi, I would trust you that it was a good contract. You know what I mean? But that would also put you'd be foolish to do so but I understand but I would obviously you know what I mean

also you're a lawyer like whatever I would trust you but I think it would put more responsibility on you obviously you know you'd be like I have to read this I have to understand it and I'm going to have Taylor sign it you know I trust you

you would be like it has to be good right right so I think that I think that's something in there as well that like there's a little bit more pressure on Rob because of the language barriers but I mean Fab learns German because once you're a European and you can learn like a thousand languages.

Yep. You know. So they start dancing and they're modeling for money. They throw parties. And they do write songs together. They start to work on their look. So one of Fab's things is like the hair. Like if you like see an outline of hair of like Elvis or Prince or Dolly Parton, like you know who it is, you know?

So he was like, we need to have like really distinct hair. So then they got their hair braided. You can picture Millie Vanilly hair, you know, like right now. Fab also is the one. that did their look, like the tight, tight leggings and big, big blazers and scarves. And, like, it was, like, a whole thing that, like, Fab invented, which is awesome. They're gay, right? No.

No. Oh, okay. No. It was the 80s and the European. I know, I know. It's hard to figure out because in the 80s, you know, it's like how you look like punk rock from back then. Like makeup and, like, Bon Jovi. Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. Okay. It was just 80s. There is a song in Legally Blonde, The Musical, called Gay or European. which is very funny. So good, fair question, fair clarifying question.

Fab also has like a memory of his mother wearing big scarves to like cover some of her some of her injuries from his father. And in his book he wrote Rebellion, but make it fashion, which was fun. You know, he's like, let's like really like be distinct with what we're wearing. So they actually have a band before Millie Vanilli.

It's called Empire Bazaar. And it's like a very pop dance group. There's a woman. in it as well. There's like one music video was just dancing. I don't even see them in it. It's say like four words. It's one of those techno words so there's like, you know, not a lot of sound not a lot of voices. The visuals

and the visuals and the beats cerebral matters, yeah. Exactly. And eventually people notice and they realize that like these guys want to be performers and they start to move up and things are, people are starting to notice them and they get the attention of the villain of our story, Frank Farian.

So let me tell you about Frank. This motherfucker. So Frank Ferryin. So Frank is a music producer. He was born on July 18th, 1941 in Kyrn, Germany. He was raised by a single mother because his dad was killed in the war. Fab describes Frank Farian as a person whose job it was to decide when black people were allowed to be heard. Because that's why he made his money. He like found black artists and made them famous. And I'll tell you some crazy shit. in a second. But to get to this point, there's a little bit about the music industry that I don't know, I don't know, obviously not like a music historian, but you can go back to like the jazz age in the United States, how like these mobsters, like white mob families are like running these prohibition machines.

And while they're doing that, they're also finding that people will stay in their speakeas and stay in their bars if there's good music. So they're using the same machine to run like black people through. these places as like jazz musicians, you know, so they had to like, you know, leave through the back door and they couldn't come in the front door, but they were like perform all night for all these white people. And the mopsters would make all the money, obviously, you know, and people would keep playing because they loved the music and they liked to do it. And they were sometimes in contracts that were like really hard to get out of and all these things.

So even like today, people of all races and genders and ages are stuck in really shitty music industry contracts, you know. I was going to say, I'd never heard, I mean, there's got to be some, but like, there's a lot of stories about evil music producers. A lot of them. Like, didn't Taylor Swift literally recreate her album just because of a music producer? That's literally my next bullet point, because Taylorstuff had to buy back her masters, which is like the original pressing of all of her music and redo it because the producers, like, had her in a shady contract. And she can get out of it because now she's, you know, rich enough to do that, but how many millions of people aren't, you know? yeah you know um so it's almost impossible to like control your own destiny in the music industry

very very very few people do it um and let me even that taylor swift example like she had to go through all these things and like you know Elvis how terrible his life was you know just like nothing is good you know all the guys who die who die of these terrible drug overdoses because everything's so hard we have a good story before you know that which is um and you heard about 50 cent and master pee So 50 cent when he was first, first just starting to get going, he signed this contract with Master P to do eight concerts under his brand and his label. And he did three concerts and then Master Pard already paid him for the eight.

And so he had five more on his contract. And he goes, hey, look, like go do other things, go record your album, go do tours, do whatever you want. Later on, we'll wrap up the other 500 contracts. And then when 50 cent told the story, he's like, oh, because he knew I was going to blow up. He knew there was going to be this huge thing. He'd rather wait until you're a megastar and I've already bought you for cheap for these five additional shows and let you play out the rest of your contract. So there's a little bit of conniving going on on all sides. Oh, absolutely.

Yeah. Absolutely. So one quote from, you know it's true, this wonderful book. Fab says, the pattern is older than vinyl. artists create and gatekeepers extract and when an artist begins to burn out when their mental health cracks when addiction starts showing through the seams or when the magic dims they're labeled difficult unreliable or crazy the label drops them and the press mocks them and that's the cue for another fresh face to be ushered in yeah which we see again and again um so it's also true for other like every other thing fast of life like if you're like I mean sure for every hell of mirror and how many other other things you know, 85-year-old women do you have who were celebrities and were somebody and just washed by the wayside?

You know, I think it probably holds true. Absolutely. I definitely wrote women under there because women get called, you know, crazy. You know, she's being hysterical and like, da-da-da-da. You know, like, you're a bitch. So whatever. So all of that's the music industry. You know, there's a lot of that happening.

And Frank knows this. You know, Frank Ferry knows this. And, you know, why he knows this and what he did in his past. do you remember Fars when we did our episode on Resputin and I sang the I sang the Resputin song to you Yeah So that song is by a band called Boney M

and it's super fun I think I probably made you watch the video of them doing it But when Boni M performs like Resputin it's so good So the main performer Bobby Farrell he'll like wear this like Resputin fake beard And then he wears like these big Russian pants

and he has no shirt on and he's very skinny and he's a real hairy chest and he's just like running around the stage singing he's super fun to watch and then the women in the background like the rest of the band like they're dressed in these like beautiful disco outfits and like it's really it's just so fun and they got really popular with their like disco hits um but and so their producer was frank farian who's going to produce milly vinilly but guess what bonnie m main guy bobby feral was elipsing the entire time. And you know whose voice it was? It was Franks. It was the white German music producer Frank Farian. It was his voice that Bobby Farrell is lip-synching to and all those wonderful Boni-M performances. Wow, okay.

So he has a pattern. Yeah, so he did a book. He's done it before. And he didn't care. People found out and he was like, yeah, yeah, you know, whatever, it was fun. like wasn't this big like this big of a scandal um yeah but he had done it before um the other one that i think is this is not a frank farian one but that i just want to bring up is you know the song pump up the jam yeah the woman who sings it in the video and on tour is not the woman who sings it

but the woman who sings it her is like kind of like a like a short kind of like tomboyish woman and just like not the look so they hired a model to lip sync the whole time yeah and that I'm not that surprised by any of this, to be honest with you, because it's all about the packaging and you're really, ultimately, they're selling a product. And if the product doesn't have the right look, then you just find the product that does and match it with. So that's like one of the big questions is like,

who is the victim in this crime? You know, like, if everyone agreed that that was okay and like everyone knew, then like, would you really care? you know we probably no we probably shouldn't like what i was thinking about as you're saying this was how like when we were kids they dragged like all of nlb in front of like the u.s house and we're like these guys are doing steroids like do we care like if they're hitting more home runs and we're enjoying it more like who like i don't know there's like a weird ethics to this that's like we kind of all agree that the cooler thing is to cheat but we're just not going to allow

Let's see how far Lance Armstrong can go with all of his alien blood. Yeah, exactly. Why the fuck not? Yeah, totally. So, okay, so they're going to meet Frank Farian. Frank Farian also has a girlfriend named Ingrid. Ingrid is going to be in this story a lot later. Guess what Ingrid's nickname is?

Bourbon. Millie. Millie Vinnyly is named after her. After Frank's... I feel like you want to be like, which one's Millie, which was vanilla, but that's not at all the way that it is. It's just like, Millie is Ingrid's nickname, and they just like, we're like, oh, that sounds cute if you say Millie Vanilly. Like, that's it.

So they hear about Robin Fab in 1988, Ingrid and Frank. They ask them to come to their studio. They put, Robin and Fab put on their best outfits, and they give them a contract. And again, the contract is in German, and Rob and Fab both sign it. So this is like the part where I think it probably weighed heavier on Rob. that he spoke German and should have read the contract more than he did. But they have pictures of them signing it, toasting with Champagne. They are super, super happy.

And Frank leans over to Fab and whispers, don't fuck with me right after they sign the contract. So for a few months, nothing happens. They don't call them back. Like, nothing is happening. They're like, what are we supposed to be doing? Like, should we be recording? Like, we have songs you've written. We're like super excited.

They're practicing dances. They're like, what do we do? And they get an advance and they get paid a little bit like a stipend per month, but they still aren't doing anything. And like, honestly, like they're hungry. They're like, what is happening? Like, physically hungry. Like, we're getting, we don't want to like get jobs because like what are we, we want this to take off. Like, what is happening?

And so eventually they get the call to go into the studio. And Frank's studio in the outside of Munich is like beautiful state of the art, everything. They're like, oh my God, like this is it. We're so freaking excited. Like, we have songs. We have ideas. Like, we cannot wait to start recording. And they play the background to girl, you know it's true.

Oh, my God. It's so great. Everyone's like, they're like, this is so freaking exciting. This song is fun, a shit. And Frank pulls Rob away and tells him something in German. And Rob comes back really, really mad. And he says to Fab, they don't want us to sing. They don't want us to sing.

And Fab is like, what are you talking about? Like, how are we supposed to make this album if we're not singing? And Frank and Ingrid are like, listen, you're hot, you're great dancers, but you have very heavy accents and they can sing like later you can hear you can hear their real voices but it's accented you know like it's not like the perfectly unaccented american voices that are in those songs and they're also like these songs have already been recorded by american vocalists and you are stuck you would have to give us back all that money we know you don't have it anymore and also you will never have a chance in the music industry again if you leave this contract so they said okay

we'll do this one this one song and then maybe they'll let us sing the next one you know if we play along you know and they were scared Ingrid denies like she's actually in the documentary she denies that she threatened them

but I don't fucking believe her and they were like in their early 20s Ingrid took on this like weird ass mothering role with Rob she would like sleep in the head bed with him because he like never really had like felt like he was part of a family

so she would be like oh it's going to be okay you know like weird shit And she also, like, she denies it. And then she also kind of laughs and says, I mean, like, if they don't want to do it, they could have just been like garbage men in Munich. Who cares? You know, like very, she'd be very much threatened them. She's awful.

So they go along with it. And they do, and they release girl, you know it's true. So the real singers are these American backup singers named Brad Howell and Charles Shaw. They are the voices. Linda and Jody Rocco are sisters and they're the backup. voices. Linda and Jody are white. Brad and Charles are black, just for the record. Charles is the rapper, because there's some rap in those songs, and he's still pissed about it. He, I mean, obviously, like, I think Brad Howell is a little bit like it happened, but Charles was pissed.

He told some people about it, tried to, like, in the early days, like, leak it. And Frank was basically like, do you believe this black guy or do you believe me? You know? And so he, like, threatened him. Ingrid says, yeah, Charles had a personality, you know? Like, they were, like, not going to let him have any opinions. When he does try to come out, he gets death threats from fans and from, like, other people. So he just, like, kind of disappears. And they have another guy, John Davis, as a rapper. And they pay him, like, 10,000 Deutschmarks, which is, like, not the much money.

Did Frank think it was a big deal that it was being lip synced? Because sounds like he doesn't care. He doesn't care. Then why not just let everyone know that's lip synced? Because he thinks that people would care, I guess. you know and he's like I've done this before and it was fine basically you know and like I see these two humans that are going to be a smash hit I just need to have like a song voice that like I think matches it so whatever else just do it so we can make money you know so the singers would like record

at night through the back doors like things like that all that kind of stuff like so like you people were like not supposed to know and then I wrote this in all caps it was a smash fucking hit because of course it was do you remember because I remember and I loved it so much. Do you remember? Yeah. It was just so fucking exciting. I remember like roller skating to their music videos at the roller rink. Like, love it. Yeah, Millie Vanilli was everywhere.

Yeah. So Frank Farian is the music producer, but you might ask me, Taylor, what was the record company behind all of this? Taylor, what was the record company? I'm glad you asked. So, thank you. So in Germany, it was,

It's record companies work in like a kind of like a cascade, I don't know, like an outline down, whatever it's called, like a hierarchy. So it was Ariela Records in Germany and then Hana, BMG, and eventually Artisa Records in the United States. Yes. So another aside, BMG music, which still exists today, which you may have heard of. It went through some hands. It was sold to Sony. Now it was sold back to some other people, but it's still a record producing company. company right now, the BMG stands for Bertelsman Music Group. In 1988, when this was happening, so BMG is the umbrella corporation above aerial records that Millie Vanilli is in, it was run by a man named Reinhardt, Mone, who is the grandson of the original Burlesman who started a Burlesman music group.

Cool. Reinhard Mone is the president of BMG. because his father could not be the president of BMG because his father was in the SS. Oh, wow. So the original Bertelsman is the grandpa, the dad is in the SS, and then Reinhart-Mone is now in 1988 running a BMG. Reinhardt Mohn joined the Luftwaffe in 1939, and he spent some time in American POW camp before he went back to Germany

and then started the family business of the music industry. Reinhart Mohn, the son of an SS officer, who was in the luthwafa was instrumental in bmg's music production until 1991 i was going to say when you said bmg i was like i kind of recognized that name yeah like world war two was not that long ago yeah that's wild like someone in the luthwaffe was producing millie-vinilly music yeah and probably others that we would recognize of course of course yeah so wild um in the united states It's Artisa Records, which is Clive Davis, who you've heard of.

So that's the big company here. So these guys, all of the guys, the umbrellas, like, they didn't ask a lot of questions. They didn't care. They're making a shit ton of money. One thing, I'm going to read another quote from this book. Fab says, so they became like a product to BMG to these record companies. And Fab says, we were young and scared because every piece of us, our hunger, our wounding, and our dreams was bound to, to that deal. There was some part of us, no matter how small, that still believed we could

claw our way to something real, almost as if, if we worked hard enough, we could earn our way to a fair deal. But contracts don't measure belief. They measure deliverables, revenue, and risk. And we had become a risk once they start knowing that they, people, more people start thinking about it. But I'll tell you about that in a second. So, all those people are making a shit ton of money. Rob and Fab are stuck in this contract. They are a hit in Europe, smash, smash hit. People are a little bit surprised that they become a smash hit in the United States, but like, I'm not surprised, obviously, because I'm still very excited about it.

And yes, it's a little weird that when they do interviews, they don't have like perfect English and they have very heavy accents. Again, Rob is from Germany, you know. I don't know. Like, when I, I remember when I first heard Celine Dion speak, I was kind of shocked that her voice was, like, that she was so accented because... Yeah. I don't go to find interviews of people.

You don't hear it at all when she's singing. I agree. I agree. You do hear it a little bit when Fab sings, girl, you know, it's true now. Really? Okay. Yes. But I don't...

I mean, there's ways... Also, it doesn't matter. Like, who cares if they have accents? Like, if anything, Americans, like, adore European stuff when they adore American stuff. Like, having an accent will probably make... They seem cooler here. I agree. People love that.

The Beatles were a smash hit. I know. I know. Wait, did they have an accent? I mean, could you hear the accent on the Beatles? I can't hear them in my head right now. They had to. I can only hear a girl, you know, it's true in my head right now.

I don't know. I know. I can hear the background beat. Smash hit. Okay. So they need another song, right? And so a writer named Diane Warren comes in and she says, I wrote a song called Blame it on the rain.

oh so good do you know who diane warren is no okay she has written so many songs she has been nominated for 16 oscars including these are the ones that i know that i feel like you would know because you loved me a post and personal sung by selene dion how do i live from con air oh my god i don't want to miss a thing from armageddon we got in trouble for dancing too close to that at prom she this year 2025 She was nominated for a song called The Journey from a movie called Six Triple Eight, which I've never heard of that. But anyway, even this year, Diane Warren was nominated for an Oscar. She wrote, Unbreak My Heart, Can't Fight the Moonlight, Rhythm of the Night, When I See You Smile, When I See You Smile, If I See You Smile, If I See You Smile, If I Can't The Bad English. If I could turn back time. She wrote songs for Cher, Lady Gaga, Celine Dion. And those are just the ones I know.

So, like, of course, Blamey and out of the rain is going to be a smash hit because Diane Warren is a smash hit. Yeah. You know? I am disappointed that those artists didn't write those songs. I do feel that way. How is that not cheating? Like, how is that also not cheating? You know, like, recently, not recently.

Like, in the past, like, five years, I learned that a lot of these comedians that, like, I adore, they didn't write their own jokes. They, like, paid someone who's a comedian who's coming up to write jokes, they would just do them. I know. That's not cheating. There's so, whatever. Doesn't it suck? I know. It sucks.

I agree. I hate it. I hate it. I do have a friend who's a comedian, and there was a time when we were hanging out all the time. which like we're just really close and he would tell me jokes and I would laugh and then later he would do them on stage and I felt a little used you know like he was telling me jokes and then like you know using me as a little bit of a sounding board which like I get but I was also like I wish you would have told me like I didn't I thought we were talking and then you're just friends and I didn't know I was yeah like I was making you you're making me laugh which like I like thank you but also like I don't like that that joke is now honestly yeah I don't love that um so okay they're in the United States they have two hit songs um and they do a tour and the band is like isn't it weird they don't practice with us but they're told that like oh they you know they're practicing their dancing or whatever and i think the band the band knew paid right away but they were like whatever we're getting paid

what are you going to do so they have a live band um they are on tour they're touring they have an eight month tour is only 1989 it has been like maybe a year um they tour 107 cities in in eight months. They are on MTV Spring Break with downtown Julie Brown. If you know her, she's great. She was a VJ. And at one point, in one of their shows, the sound thing breaks, the sound emulator.

Because also, I think that you would notice that the songs were perfect every time they sang it. Yeah. You know, because when you see someone live, like, you do want to see the little bit of nuance that you know that they're actually talking to the microphone, you know? Yeah. If you ever listen to, not to keep throwing it back to somebody, if you're hearing in concert, it does not sound like anything like his albums.

No, it should be like a little bit less good and a little bit weird. And then like, you know, because it's not gone through the studio. Yeah. Whatever happens there. So at one point, so it does break. And you can, you can see a video of it. And they're on stage and they're singing and it goes, girl, you know it's, girl, you know it's girl, you know, you know, and it's like, oh no. And they're running off the stage.

Rob is pissed. Everyone's mad. Everyone's scared. And another side note is like the record. company some people are still saying they didn't know but if you look at the um like the liner notes from the record in europe for a girl you know it's true rob and fab are not even listed as vocalists but they are on the u.s version so someone in the united states was like we're printing their names on this you know what i mean in europe they did not um people started to think this is weird arsini hall

does a bunch of like weird like jokes about them he's like i don't know it seems strange um and then one thing that fab says again and he says in the movie he says lies take the elephant elevator while the truth takes the stairs so it's going to catch up to them um they made the record company 580 million dollars it's the late 80s and frank farian is worth half a billion dollars you know so he's just rich rich as fuck and he's like it's like a magic trick some people knew clive davis knew they won two american music awards um but then came the grommies and the grammies are like the ones that the music industry like i don't know allegedly take seriously you know and there are they have management in the united states and they have this man who is an assistant manager

his name is todd he's like he's like brand new and he was like i didn't know he said everybody else knew but i swear to god i didn't know you know and todd is like okay well what can i do for these guys are doing such a good job i think they should win a Grammy it's like what do i do so he calls the Grammys and says how do you nominate someone for a Grammy and they're like just send us a letter on the fact of a letter on your letterhead so from area um the record company. He sends a letter, faxes it over that says, please, for your consideration,

millie-vinnelly, best new artist. And everyone was mad. They're like, what the fuck do you do? They have to perform at the Grammys now. And Todd is like, I don't know, I don't know. I thought they deserve a Grammy. They're great, you know. And so the manager paid a lot of money to let them do the playback at the Grammys. And they said, while they were doing that, superstars are watching them and they're like they knew they knew you know like they knew um so the best new

artist category the nominees are nina cherry indigo girls millie vinilly soul to soul and tone loke and milly vinilly wins um so everyone is like oh my god this is this is a picture in front of the book they're holding it look at their faces they're like holy shit like that's probably a weird feeling yeah and they're like you know rob is like we didn't not deserve stuff. We worked really hard, you know, but like, not for this. You know what I mean? Right.

So they won. Later, I think, I think it's Mariah Carey who wins the next year. And trust, like, I mean, obviously, because she's fantastic. So they try to, like, bring it back to being like, you know, like bring, bring, I don't know, like get rid of that shame of having given it to Millie Vanillae. But, but so they win their Grammy. And Rob and Fab, during this whole time, like, they're not blameless. they're enjoying this you know they're they have money they have women they have drugs they have like all of the things that you get when you're a superstar and they do let it go to their heads

you know um they you know kind of at the back of their head they were like you know eventually we're going to say so let's just like ride this we our dreams are coming true you know like this is everything you ever wanted we're global superstars um they said some stupid shit like oh we're better than Elvis you know we're better than the Beatles which is dumb um and like and John Lennon said, I'm more popular than Jesus. You say stupid shit when you are a superstar. You do put a target on your back, though, I will say. Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

They thought that they had a little bit of control and that they had leverage, but they had none. Their contract was for multiple albums, and Frank Ferry and Ingrid, they decided what was going to happen. Clive Davis wouldn't let them sing. They were like, forget it. They tried to get lawyers. They couldn't get any help. and then the word that got out that they were looking for lawyers and Frank found out and Frank was pissed and Frank was like, okay, I'm going to leak this because now it's gone too far because you won the fucking Grammy and now everybody expects something of you and you cannot, you cannot do this. Like we cannot continue to do it. So on November 15th, 1990, Frank Ferian goes on a show called Vetend Das, which is a German TV show and he told the truth. He said, well, here's what he said. He said that Robin Fab had bad demos. Nobody cared anyway. They tried to extort him for money. but they started to get out of their contract

and he said, these are the real singers. And he kind of paraded the black people in front of him and was like, these are the real singers in Millie Vanilly. It broke in the LA Times. And Robin Fabb, like,

lived in L.A. at the time and they were, like, woken up to all this press and then it was over. You know, they were like superstars to not in a second. Like, they had friends who called the first day

and didn't call the second day. You know what I mean? And like, they like slowly lost, just lost. It's kind of a way to do it, though. Like, if I were to have it one way, that probably is the way to do it. Because then,

After like 10 years, everybody forgets who you are, you change your hair, and all of a sudden you live a normal life, but you have hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank. Like, that's not the worst life. Well, they didn't, they didn't keep, have a lot of money. Oh, well, then I wouldn't do it. No. They were, like, tied to the record contract. I don't, I did get any impression that they got out of this with any money. You know, they did try to continue to do music stuff, but they were not, they weren't like hundreds of million dollars.

Yeah. All right. Um, so millie, uh, millie, uh, Robin Fab do a press conference in, in L.A. Um, they give back the Grammy, which they were like told to do and like, make sense. They give it back. Um, and it is wild. It is in the movie and the press, you know, they're yelling at them. You know, obviously people are yelling. It's like a lot of like noise and camera flashes and yelling. And, and they take a second and Robin and Fab sing and Fab rap. So like we can do this, you know, like we just were not allowed to based on the shitty contract that we got into because we, we we were young and rob is like listen like we were young we are talented we wanted to be on the stage but we had no money we lived in the projects i worked at in fast food restaurants like we were trying to scrape ourselves together like we didn't have anything we could not get out of that and then we this contract was like a blessing like oh my god we can get out of this and that's how we were able to get out so he's like people are like well how could you and he's like you don't understand if you've

never been poor if you've never been hungry like you can't judge someone for what they do when they're hungry. And then at the very end of the press conference, this kind of sneaks in and I like had to pause it and like scream to my husband because someone says, Rob says, how you ever live in the projects? You don't know what it's like. And someone, a reporter, says, your talent would have gotten you out of the projects. And then someone else says, that is spoken like a true white boy. You knew it wasn't true once you said it. Because it's not true, you know. There's no meritocracy. You can't work your way out of the project. You can. some people do but it's not something guaranteed it's not a guarantee yeah yeah so like they're saying like it's

like that's something a white person would say which i laughed because i was like it's exactly right exactly right so the backlash you know was harsh but some people like burned their records like some people sued like there's just like horrible mother and her son on tv because they sued them and the son was like I'm suing because when I pictured them I pictured them like this you're like did your mom make you do this this is so weird like why do you care so much whatever um The label said that they knew six months before, but Clive Davis again said that he didn't know. Howard Stern did a blackface skit about it that I didn't watch, but I saw a little bit of, which is not great. And they were disposable.

And that was it for Robin Fab. Then Frank released the second album, because it had already been recorded with other singers, called it the real Millie Vanilli, with the people who actually did the voices. But he added a black woman. to the group, but she was lip-syncing to those white women's voices from the original songs. This is ridiculous. Like Inception, like in the worst. Are you fucking kidding? Yeah.

So, Frank is just such a piece of shit. So, you know, nobody cared. Nobody cared about that either. Obviously, it wasn't as popular. That band didn't stay. For a few years later, Robin Fabb released their own album, and it's nice. They go on Arsenio Hall, they do the performance. It's really fun. Fab raps.

They sing. They dance. I guess just the same thing. You know, it's great. But nobody care they sold 2,000 copies worldwide like they lost that they were never going to be superstars again um and they take it differently they both do drugs but the drugs take over rob's life fab releases is an own album in the 90s he lives in l.A he's on um the ruPaul show and he's like he has a cute 90s dreads and like that 90s sweater with a stripe across it like he just like looks very 90s it's sweet um that does you know it's doesn't it's not huge but it's good um but rob is not great He goes to rehab 11 times.

He is, you know, his health is terrible. He is in jail up and down. There is one time in the 90s when Fab is outside the Vipar Room in L.A., which is like where River Phoenix died, you know, and he sees a man laying on the street. And he goes over to him and looks at him and he says, I looked at his eyes and I knew it was Rob. He found Rob on the street in like a drugged out phase in front of the Viper room. And he picks him up and he says, Rob, it's Fab. Where do you live?

where can I take you? Like, what do you need? And Fab, like, Rob pointed to a apartment and he brought him there and it was like a drug house. So Fab just like left him to this drug house. He was like super, you know, just drugged out, just like not good at all. In 1998, Rob went back to Germany to go to rehab again. He goes to a clinic in Oderberg, Germany. And he stayed before he goes to to check into the clinic, he stays at a hotel near where Ingrid lives. And she's like, I'm going to check on you and take you to this, to this place. So he gets there, he stays the night at the hotel. She calls a hotel in the morning. He doesn't answer. She calls again, he doesn't answer. At 2 o'clock, she goes to the hotel. He doesn't answer.

She knocks on the door. She gets someone to open him up. Rob is laying on the floor in his underwear. He's dead. She tries to shake him to wake him up. And the people that are with her, they start calling the police. I said he's dead. He died of an overdose of drugs and alcohol.

all. When the funeral happened, Frank Farian didn't come, but he sent the biggest flower bouquet and moved the flowers from Rob's family and from Fab to the side. So it was in the middle. And it said, like, rest in peace, Fabfarian and Ingrid. So they like tried to make themselves like the biggest thing of the funeral. Ingrid, like I said, is still alive. But Frank Farian died recently. He died in January, 2024. No repercussions. Still. which, you know, all those things. So our dear Fab, now lives in Holland with his family. He met a beautiful woman. She is a fitness instructor. When they went on their first date, he said he'd like go to her fitness class. And he like went and it was really hard. And he was like embarrassed and super cute.

He had short hair. And he said his name was Fabrice, which it is. He's like, my name is Fabrice. I have this short hair. And her friends were like, girl, I think that guy's from Millie Vinny. She's like, well, I don't care. I just like Fabrice. You know, I just like him.

And they got married. His children are younger than mine. He has like twins who are like three now. They have four kids together and he continues to like make music and do things. He still tours and sings a millie vanilla songs at festivals, which you can see online and it's so cute and great. And his legacy is to teach his kids a couple of things. Like when you fall, you can stand back up and he's breaking the cycle of abuse. And so he's like, you know, trying to be a good father when he didn't have that, didn't have that example.

from from his parents. And in the end of his book, he has a couple things that I want to read to you. His sort of motivations and things are, be a container for the good, love with intention, listen mindfully, play with utter abandon, laugh a lot, eliminate regret as an option, continue to learn, treat curiosity as vital as oxygen, appreciate your friends, be well, do what you love, walk to the edge again and again. run with your passions and live as if this is all there is because it is so he's living a nice a nice life now he's pretty wise i think that he probably went through so many unique experiences that most people would never have and you have to yeah well you have to come out of that with

something like some learnings like what a ride in the documentary there's a music um journalist and he says you know it's still right music that's what the record company would say it's still great music so like who cares but it also cost it costs it costs lives it costs rob's life literally and it cost the possibility of who rob and fab could have been if they didn't have this happen to them but also like it did happen and there's a lot of like just interesting shit about the world and music industry and history and all of that in this story it's also a really weird story that the book begins with where he goes to um they go to michael jackson's house because Michael Jackson wanted to meet them

and they get there and they talk to Michael Jackson's parents in the dining room but they don't meet Michael Jackson but they can hear him running around upstairs and like playing like a kid. Weird. Is that weird? He's like, so the music industry makes you weird. It's like, yeah, Michael Jackson's a prime example of that.

Yes, thank you. I would also say that if Rob had listened to Fab, then his life would have ended up probably differently because he would have been like yeah you just could knock down the new move forward but it's something you just kind of he kind of let it he let it kind of take over yeah he let the addiction take over his life and you know lived a really rough last you know it's wild that from like it was 10 years between millie valia founded in 1988 rob died in 1998 so 10 years so it was two years of superstardom eight years of crash yeah chasing the ghosts of your past um yeah that's

that's rough going um and but you know it's a really it's really interesting story i i'd always kind of pictured it as like these guys do the world and i never really dug into it i didn't care enough to really dig into it but i don't know it's like okay well it's not like every other music industry story yeah yeah it's a shitty industry man it really is it sucks yeah it really is yeah everything everything from like the is the i think the most innocent of it is people not right their own songs and you think that they do, you know? Yeah, yeah. And being like, oh, I thought those are your feelings.

Boo. But like... Oh, me, Arrow Smith didn't actually write the Armageddon? That's sad. I love that song. Yeah. But yeah, I'm glad I read it. It was fun.

It was super fun. I'm super happy for a fab. He's, I think he's just very lovely. And I also, I wonder how much worse all of this is going to get with AI music. Yeah. You know? I did listen to a 50 cent AI generated song and it was amazing

that was so good but they did it in this like old tiny like 1920s jazz smoky kind of a vibe and it sounded so cool man but I don't think it can create itself I mean it's just taking what people

have already created yeah right so you still need the source of origination for now for the next few years probably maybe maybe yeah yeah well thank you

for sharing do we have any mail you want to let's read out it's been a long time I have had some people reach out Morgan was texting me something I think just yesterday in regards to your episode about the ACLU

and freedom of speech and all of that about someone being like you don't have the right to say these hateful things and someone being like you actually do because that's kind of the point even though it sucks and who knows how long you can say anything but like all those things so well thank you for writing more again and if anybody else wants to write please

you still at dumfell pod at ginawold.com and find us on all the socials with doom the fell pod and anything else taylor um no I just encourage you to watch every available millie vanilla video if you don't want to invest in watching the documentary it's on paramount plus which is like a hard one but you know it's an odd one but if you have that you can watch it it's great um the book is is great it just

came out again it's called you know it's true by fab morvin and parisa rose but um just fucking go watch the girl you know it's true music video you'll just like smile for your dear it's so happy i might have to do that yeah after the next round of reporting um sweet well go ahead and cut it off thanks taylor thanks Thank you.