LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: While it is a regular occurrence for Cardi B to enthrall her audience with her music, this time she is making headlines for all the wrong reasons. On Saturday, July 29, while performing in Las Vegas, after she was splashed by a drink thrown by an audience member at her, the ‘WAP’ singer hurled her microphone at the offending party. However, despite hurling the mic, Cardi’s vocals did not seem to stop, which made many fans speculate whether the 30-year-old singer is the "new Milli Vanilli," per TMZ.
Nevertheless, there were many fans who came to Cardi’s defense, remarking that while the infamous R&B duo Milli Vanilli lip-synched to someone else’s voice. While it cannot be denied that Cardi was lip-synching, she was at least lip-synching to her own recorded voice.
Where is Milli Vanilli now?
The German-French R&B group named Milli Vanilli was a two member band with Fab Morvan and the late Rob Pilatus. They gained fame during the late 80s with their album ‘All or Nothing’ in Europe (reconfigured as ‘Girl You Know It's True’ in the United States). The band was founded and managed by Frank Farian in 1988. While the duo received Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1990, it was revoked after people got to know that Morvan and Pilatus did not originally sing on the album.
Both Morvan and Pilatus grew up in European cities (Morvan in Paris and Pilatus in Munich). Therefore, English was not their first language and they were not very good at speaking or singing in English. This is what first raised suspicions that the singers were not singing in their album which consisted of tracks like ‘Baby Don't Forget My Number’, ‘Blame It on the Rain’, and ‘Girl I'm Gonna Miss You’. Later, after several incidents that included the malfunctioning of a hard drive playing the Milli Vanilli songs at a live show, it became evident that the duo were lip synching to recorded vocals for stage performances. Public outcry grew and soon the lies were exposed regarding the identity of the real singers as the duo never sang in their promotional tours.
Later, Pilatus said in an interview with Los Angeles Times, "After Frank released the album, he told us that it was too late to stop now," before adding, "Because the single was such a big success, he said, 'Now you have to go through with it. I'll cover you guys. Nobody will find out.' He said, 'Here, I'll give you $20,000 advance money.' We never had a hit before, so we went along with it. We played with fire and now we know, but it's too late." The primary vocals behind the Milli Vanilli were studio performers like Charles Shaw, John Davis, Brad Howell, Jodie Rocco and Linda Rocco.
However, after the public shaming, Morvan and Pilatus decided to make a comeback with an album where the duo sang the songs themselves. The founder of Milli Vanilli, Farian, agreed to produce the new comeback album titled ‘Back and In Attack’ and the recording started in 1997. However, during this time, Pilatus got involved in drugs and crimes leading to a three-month prison sentence and six months in a rehabilitation facility in California, per The Independent. Pilatus was found dead in his hotel room in Germany on April 3, 1998, on the eve of the new album's promotional tour.
Morvan embarked on a solo career following Pilatus’s death and initially worked as a session musician and public speaker. He worked as a DJ at the LA radio station KIIS-FM in 1998. After performing on several occasions at the 1999 Wango Tango festival concert, and at the Velvet Lounge at the Hard Rock Hotel in Orlando, Florida in 2002, Morvan released his first solo album ‘Love Revolution’ in 2003. In 2011, he released the single ‘Anytime’ on iTunes. As per TMZ, Morvan was working with one of the original Milli Vanilli singers, John Davis on an album named ‘Face Meets Voice’ in 2015. He later appeared in a KFC commercial in 2016. A documentary film titled ‘Milli Vanilli’ has been directed by Luke Korem and was shown at the Tribeca film festival in 2023.
'Cardi B as: Milli Vanilli'
One fan commented after sharing the video, "I call this.... Cardi B as: Milli Vanilli." Someone else showed their frustration by saying, "How much did they scam for those tickets!!!?" Another commented, "People paying a lot of money to go listen to her cd with her." "Whole track playing. That girl was not working at all. Just lip synching to the track chile," repeated another fan.
"So Cardi B has a whole lot of Milli Vanilli action going on as she hums (sic) her mic at an unruly fan," said another. "Cardi B “s (sic) Milli Vanilli moment, lyrics keep playing after she throws at fan. Does the audience get a refund for lip syncing? #SundayFunday #CardiB #fake," chimed in someone else.
However, there were some fans who were defending Cardi B too. One fan tweeted, "Milli Vanilli literally didn't used their real voices alot of these artist nowadays used their song as an backup track especially if they don't have back up singers." "It doesn’t surprise me that you weird little kids have Milli Vanilli trending bc of Cardi B. You clearly aren’t old enough to know that the issue with MV was that they weren’t singing on their song at all. Not the same as lip syncing to your own voice due to the type of venue," defended another. Someone else raised the question of whether it is logical to pay a hefty price to watch a pop star perform live, "Upon further review, Cardi B was attacked by a dimwit fan and she fought back. Good for her. That said, this is not like Milli Vanilli because it is still her on the recording singing, which is why it is insane to pay massive prices to see pop stars live when none of them sing live."
