There’s a heartbreaking moment in the new “Milli Vanilli” documentary — premiering Wednesday on Paramount+ — when Fab Morvan recalls one of the last times he saw his “Girl You Know It’s True” partner Rob Pilatus before his death from an accidental overdose in 1998.
It was outside the Viper Room rock club in Hollywood, California, where the fallen pop star — disgraced after the lip-syncing scandal that forced the duo to return the Best New Artist Grammy it won in 1990 — was now far from the green-eyed heartthrob he once was when they were MTV sensations.
“I see a dude stumbling across the way,” says Morvan, 57, in the doc. “As he was falling, his body turned, and I looked into his eyes, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is not true.’ I’m looking at Rob Pilatus.”
Then Morvan took Pilatus home — to what appeared to be a crack house.
Nine years after Milli Vanilli had a string of chart-topping hits in 1989 — “Girl You Know It’s True” was followed by consecutive No. 1 singles “Baby Don’t Forget My Number,” “Blame It on the Rain” and “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You” — Pilatus died alone in his hotel room in Frankfurt, Germany, from a lethal mix of alcohol and prescription pills.
Morvan blames Pilatus’ death, at 32, on the brutal media bashing they took after their own producer, Frank Farian, revealed in November 1990 that they didn’t sing a note on their smash debut album, 1989’s “Girl You Know It’s True,” which sold over 6 million copies in the US alone.
“There was bullying by everybody. But why so badly that you killed someone?” Morvan told The Post. “They killed my dude. That’s what they did by the way they treated us. He died of a broken heart; he really did.”
“Milli Vanilli” recounts how an 18-year-old Morvan moved from Paris to Munich, Germany, where he met a breakdancing Pilatus at a party.
They began throwing their own parties, which led to dancing behind pop stars and modeling gigs. And with the long braids that they adopted as their signature look, they caught the attention of Boney M producer Farian, who is described as the “evil genius” behind Milli Vanilli in the documentary.
Eager to seal the deal, they didn’t read the contract before signing it. “When I signed that paper, that means we can eat, we can pay our rent, we can buy some clothing,” said Morvan. “We didn’t know what was coming next.”
Several months later when Morvan and Pilatus showed up at Farian’s Frankfurt studio, they discovered that their voices wouldn’t actually be featured on their debut single, “Girl You Know It’s True” — instead it would be the American duo of singer Brad Howell and rapper Charles Shaw.
Believing it would only be for one single, they went through with the ruse and kept it up lip-syncing around Europe and, eventually, the US. But with the success of “Girl You Know It’s True,” Farian recorded an entire Milli Vanilli album, with John Davis replacing Shaw.
As rumors circulated about their lip-syncing — which they even did during their 1990 Grammys performance — Morvan and Pilatus wanted to sing on their second album, which Farian had already recorded with Howell and Davis. Refusing to give in to their demands, the producer opted to blow the lid on their secret himself.
Although Morvan and Pilatus attempted a comeback as Rob & Fab with a 1993 album, it only sold 2,000 copies.
That failure broke Pilatus, who descended into drugs. “Something in me died, and after that I didn’t care about anything anymore,” he says in an audio interview in the doc.
But Morvan went on to find love in Amsterdam with partner Tessa Vandersteen, and the couple now have four kids. And he continues to make music — and sing Milli Vanilli songs.
“Those songs were good to me,” he said. “I celebrate those songs with the people that are in the audience because it’s a part of our life.”