Wondery subscribers can listen to. Blame it on the fame. Milli Vanilli early and ad free. Join wondery in the wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Chris Cuban Tatum was hunched over the mix deck in a Los Angeles studio. Next to him was a stack of tapes, Milli Vanilli's master tapes, sent over by Frank Ferrian. Now, Chris didn't know Frank, and he didn't know Rob or fab. He knew their tour manager, Keith Forbes. And when Keith first told him, hey, I got this gig for you with Millie Vanilli and club MTV, Chris just laughed.

Oh, you mean the ba ba ba ba ba ba ba, baby, guys like, oh, my God. Wow.

Not exactly Chris's vibe. But Keith told him he could write his own check.

And I said, keith, you know, I can write a lot of really tiny zeros on a check here. Are you sure you ought to say this? Like, man, you can write your own check?

At this point in our story, there are two kinds of people. The ones who knew the truth about Milli Vanilli and the ones who didn't. Keith knew the truth, and Chris did not. All Chris knew was that Rob and Fab wouldn't be singing live. These guys would be running all over the stage doing backflips and shit.

And so with all that dancing, you know, all that huffing and puffing and jumping around, it's just not gonna sound good if they have to sing live and do it at the same time. Right?

They'd need to use pre recorded vocals, just like almost every other band on tour. That was easy. Tour engineers could do that in their sleep. Chris had decided to kick it up a notch and at least try to make it interesting. He wanted to take those pre recorded vocals and combine them with a live band.

And so the challenge was, how do you do this?

Chris had come up with a wild.

Idea, and my secret was the emu emulator three.

The emulator three, or e three for short, looked like a regular old keyboard, but it also doubled as a sampler. Ooh, crafty. So if Chris chopped up the vocals into bit sized parts and programmed each part to a different key, you could play the vocals on a keyboard while the guys danced and the rest of the band played live. The idea was low key genius and also super fucking tedious.

I've got, you know, the tape machine playing back. Not the whole song, you know, just a single part of the song, baby.

And then the tour manager, Keith, popped by with the guys. Don't forget my number at the sound of the voices. The guys started laughing, rolling on the.

Floor, laughing their asses off. And I looked to Keith, and I said, that's a very strange reaction.

Keith leaned in close.

He said, well, I guess now is maybe a good time that I should tell you that that's not their voices.

Chris was like, say what, now?

And so I said, oh, goodness. So we need to call Frank Ferrian and get the other tapes with their voices. Like, no, you don't understand. There are no tapes with their voices on it. And so my stomach dropped, and I said to him, oh, my God, you know, is this cool?

Keith was like, yeah, sure it is.

And I thought, wow, okay. Is this illegal? He said, this is perfectly legal. And so you just have to, you know, do your part. And I said, okay, fine. Just make sure my checks don't bounce.

Chris finally got why he'd been allowed to write his own check. This wasn't just programming a synth or figuring out a tricky live show. He was stepping into something massive, the kind of secret that could break all of them if it got out.

Have you ever felt like escaping to your own desert island? Well, that's exactly what Jane, Phil, and their three kids did when they traded their english home for a tropical island they bought online. But paradise has its secrets, and family life is about to take a terrifying turn.

You don't fire at people in that area without some kind of consequence.

And he said, yes, ma'am. He's dead.

There's pure cold blooded terror running through me.

From wondery, I'm Alice Levine, and this is the price of paradise, the real life story of an island dream that ends in kidnap, corruption, and murder. Follow the price of paradise wherever you get your podcasts or binge the entire season. Right now on wondry.

I am the controller.

From wondry, I'm Amanda Seals, and this is blame it on the fame.

Your body is against blank defense. I am the controller.

This is episode three, sink or swim.

Club MTV in your town.

Club MTV live.

The tour.

Hi, we are Millie Bamilli. Join us on club m, two e, the tour. This summer.

The club MTV tour kicked off at the end of June. Milli Vanilli and crew sailed through the first seven shows.

Rob's energy was amazing. Fabrice's energy matched him.

They were like the beatles, you know, 13, 1518 year olds screaming their eyeballs out and trying to get them to calm down so we can start the show now. Here they were in Milwaukee. Keith Yan, the group's bassist, stood on the side of the stage, ready to go.

It was kind of. It was crazy. And we just sort of went on a wing and a breath.

Chris stood behind the mixing board in the center of the amphitheater. He could feel the crowd's anticipation as the lights went off. He cued the Fox searchlight theme.

This big theatrical introduction. It told the audience the show was.

About to start and it was going to be epic. White searchlights cut through the dark and combed the stage. Fog filled the air. A basie drone started up and the band came in full force. Two spotlights found fab and Rob on opposite ends of the stage. They ran toward each other and collided mid air.

They were, whoa, like that, and they run up and do this chest bump.

Rob broke into a running man, then turned to Keith.

Running man, him, running man, me facing each other. His back is to the audience. I was responsible for cueing Rob to spin around and start the song.

Keith counted him in.

I would count the eight bars, 5678. And I would say, now this is.

The part where Keith should be giving Rob the signal.

And twelve bars, 14 bars, 16 bars, 20 bars.

The vocals weren't coming on.

He's looking at me. He's going, when? I'm going, uh, I don't know. When? I don't know.

Rob danced over to the keyboardist, Gail Johnson. She was standing in front of the e three, and I'm like, I'm trying, I'm trying. I don't know what's going on. Rob kept doing the running man, but he's really looking at me like, girl, you better get it together before I hurt you.

And so meanwhile, I can't run to the keyboard because I'm 500ft in the middle of the venue.

Chris jumped on the comms.

I'm, you know, I'm screaming back and forth. I'm giving instructions.

And then he saw Rob and Fab do a literal running mission right off the stage. The band was left standing there by themselves. No one knew what to do. So Chris pulled a Hail Mary. He told MTV VJ and master of ceremonies downtown Julie Brown to go out on stage and stall.

And she says, oh, milwaukee, come on. The guys are not feeling the love. I know you can chat louder for Billy Vadilli. You'd love to hear you say Billy Vidilli.

The crowd bought it. They're screaming Melly by Nelly.

It looks like the whole thing was planned.

While Julie Brown vamped on stage, Chris got in Gail's ear.

I said, okay, mute everything, turn it off and reset it.

When the e three came back, on Gale did a quick test. It was working. Chris told everyone, let's get on with the show. Rob and Fab reappeared. Running man. And on stage, they skip straight to the fan favorite girl. You know it's true. Chris turned the bass all the way up.

It is the loudest, boomiest, most impactful thing. I mean, you can feel this in your chest, down to your soul. And the kids, of course, are loving it, and the show goes on.

But Rob and Fab were shaken. After the show, they stormed onto the tour bus. They wanted answers.

You know, what the fuck happened?

Why didn't the e three come on?

Rob was visibly and audibly upset, and.

He did not like Chris's answer. The e three wasn't foolproof.

Now, the e three did have a little reputation that followed. A reputation of being, how should we say, fussy.

It was a small piece of electronics with teeny, tiny eight megabytes worth of eighties computer memory that didn't like heat or humidity. Counting on. The e three was out of the picture. But Chris was a pro.

Don't worry, I got you guys.

If it crapped out again, he'd get them through it. Chris had all kinds of tricks up his sleeve.

I know how to mix you so that you sound as close as possible to the record, and then we'll run through it, and that'll be it.

The guys were going to have to be ready to do the one thing Frank Ferrian told them they could never do. If they wanted to keep going, they'd have to be prepared to really sing. From Milwaukee, the tour rolled on, and the e three continued to be as temperamental as the pop stars whose voices it was covering. For some shows, it needed a quick reset. Other shows, it never came on at all.

And so our fallback at any given time was just, okay, screw to e three. We're going 100% live.

There was always a certain amount of anxiety, but there was a kind of like, it's kind of a driving a race car. You may crash, but you're not thinking about it crashing. Otherwise you wouldn't drive it.

Rob and Fab learned to roll with it.

Rob was an ultimate showman. He believed he could do whatever he wanted to do, and he believes that he could do.

I sing.

And Fab Fabrice has always, always been a perfectly serviceable vocalist. I mean, he can sing. He always was able to sing.

For the rest of the tour, no matter what happened, the show went on, and their fans loved it. After every show, it was the same.

We always went to the local club. Always. Always. And people would run after the limo, and we would go in this unmarked van to the club, hang out to the club till it closed. Then we go back to the hotel room and rock and roll after that, which I don't need to expand upon. What happened.

We get it, Keith.

But it's rock and roll.

Yep.

And a lot of girls, a lot of groupies.

We got it. Y'all was getting it in. Good job.

I mean, just everything that you could imagine in any rock movie or story is real life. More intense.

But that was just the thing. It was real life, but it was also all a fantasy. And those lines, well, they started to get real blurry.

The crowds, the sheers. The happiness that we were getting access to on stage was immensely. It was incredible. It was beautiful. You know, it made us feel like. I never felt like this before.

Fab wanted that feeling, and he knew Rob did, too.

Famous addictive fame is seductive. We were young boys who wanted to live a dream.

And on stage, it was all a dream. There was no frank. There was just rob and fab.

So we stayed. Even though the other side of my body was saying, don't stay here, I can tell you it's not gonna end well.

Hi, I'm Anna.

And I'm Emily. And we're the hosts of terribly famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities.

And we are really excited about our latest season because we are talking about someone very, very special.

You're so sweet.

A fashion icon.

Oh, I actually just put this on.

A beautiful woman.

Your words, not Mike.

Someone who came out of Croydon and took the world by storm.

I don't tell them where I live.

A muse, a mother, and a supermodel who defined the nineties.

I don't remember doing the last one.

Wow.

Emily.

Not you, obviously. I mean Kate Moss.

Oh, I always get us confused because.

You'Re both so small.

How dare you?

We are gonna dive back into Kate's nineties heyday and her insatiable desire to say yes to absolutely everything life has to offer.

The parties, the Hollywood heartthrobs, the rockstar bad boys. Have I said parties?

You did mention the parties. But saying yes to excess comes at a price, as Kate spirals out of control and risks losing everything she's worked for. Follow terribly famous wherever you listen to podcasts or listen early and ad free on wondery, on Apple podcasts or the wondery app.

On the one hand, Frank was breathing easier with the guys far, far away from his studio. On the other he was gripped with the fear that they were going to fuck it all up. The idea of them going out on tour had been scary enough. The thought of them left to their own devices running around LA after that tour was too much. So before you could say, oh, Wiedersen, Frank had Ingrid on a plane. If Ingrid had been psyched to join the guys in rainy old England, you better believe she was thrilled to head to California.

For me, it was great. I said, I want to be in LA, too, so better as being here in Frankfurt. Yeah.

But when she touched down in La La land, she found the guys in actual la la land. They were living large, dining at the hippest restaurants, rubbing elbows with real life Hollywood stars.

People like Kiffa Sutherland or Kano Reeves or Billy idol. People come by and say hello. Oh, nice to see you. And congratulations for the number one. We have a party tonight. Would you come and join us? And Rob, in fact, went to the parties. And you can imagine what happened at these parties. Yeah. Sex, drugs and drug and roll.

There was a lot of that happening back at their house, too.

Girls, out, in, out. I want to have a quiet atmosphere. I can have a breakfast in the morning without hundreds of girls running naked around me.

But it wasn't the girls or the partying that worried Ingrid.

Everything was leased in this house, even the cleaning lady. A spoon, a plate, a tv.

This really set something off for the pragmatic, penny pinching German in her.

I said, we can buy everything. No, we lease it until they pay it.

They meaning the record company. Rob clearly had no idea how these things worked.

Rob said, the record company. Aristotle paid for everything. For the lease, for the car, for the cleaning lady, for the bodyguards, to bodyguards.

Ingrid tried to spell it out as clearly as she could. It was all coming out of their paycheck.

Ah. He said, no way. They earned so much money with our album. They can pay for it for nothing because we are there. I said, rob, no, be careful. Now it starts. You'll be bankrupt in a short of time if you behave like this.

Here was Rob, sitting on top of the world, and Ingrid was a grade A, certified buzz kill. He didn't want a nanny. He wanted an ally. Someone who would treat him like a king, not a child. If anyone was born to drive a jeep through the streets of LA, it was 31 year old Todd Headley. Todd had blue eyes, blonde hair and lots of good boy puppy energy. Not even LA traffic could get him down because Todd had just started working at gallon Maury. And Rob and Fab were his idols.

That was the only reason I took the job.

So far, he'd mostly been driving his boss, Linda Lyon, around and picking up her dry cleaning. He'd had zero face time with the guys. But today was Todd's lucky day. He'd been asked to drive Rob and fab to the dentist. This was the one on one time he'd been waiting for. As soon as they got in the car, Todd started chatting them up. Or he tried to.

They didn't speak very good English.

Their accents were so thick, you could cut them with a knife, which was strange. They sang in such clear English on their songs. But before Todd could even have that thought, they pointed all around his car.

They love my jeep.

That was one word Todd could make out. Jeep, jeep, jeep. In fact, they loved his jeep so much, they wanted to go buy one of their own right now. Todd called Linda from the dentist's office.

Of course, she hit the roof. Like, why do they need a new jeep? But, you know, they're the client.

So after the guys did their rinse and spit, Todd took them straight to the dealership. They immediately spotted the jeep they wanted. It was black, with tinted windows and leather interior. Ooh, come to daddy's. Todd said, hold up. Not so quick.

Act like you really don't want the jeep that bad. Let me handle this.

Todd went over to the salesperson. He got the price down by $7,000. So the guys were in awe.

They thought I was God.

Now they wanted to drive their new car to play tennis.

So then I had to call Linda again, and could Sandy arrange for us to use the tennis court behind his head?

And then the guys wanted to eat.

And now we're going to sushi. She was absolutely out of her mind livid with me.

But the way Todd saw it, he was just doing his job, keeping them happy. At dinner, Todd fanboyed over them. He told them he thought they should be getting even more attention. Rob and Fab were like, hell, yeah, this guy gets us.

We were just like three peas in a pot. I mean, we just had a blast.

The next morning, Todd pulled up a seat at a huge table with all the other assistants and managers.

Sandy says, todd, do you have a passport? I said, no.

Sandy said, well, you better get one, because Rob and Fab are heading to Europe, and they want you to come with them as their new manager. Sandy turned to Linda.

So, Linda, I'm taking you off the Millie Vanelli account. And, Todd, it's time for you to sink or swim.

The other assistants around the table, they were staring daggers. Linda, she was staring machetes. But Todd was going to prove himself to all of them, and he knew exactly where to begin. Todd took his next meeting with all the lead managers at the big kids team. They went around sharing updates on their clients. When it was Todd's turn, he took his swing. He wanted to submit Milli Vanilli for the Grammys.

Blame it on the rain. I see that as song of the year type of song.

The other managers laughed under their breath.

I think Linda even said, trust me, todd, they're not getting nominated for a Grammy.

Todd didn't get it. Milli Vanilli's debut album had already gone platinum.

And I remember leaving the meeting thinking, well, why? Why is everybody so negative? Like, it didn't make sense to me.

So Todd called up the recording academy and asked them how to submit a group for consideration.

He goes, oh, just put on your letterhead, or the record company can do it, or whoever. The management letterhead, you know, just submit them. Please consider Milli Vanilli. And that's all you really need.

That's it. Easy. Todd sent it off and patted himself on the back. Now it was time to prepare for three months in Europe with two newly minted pop stars and the man who made them. The white zone is for immediate floating. Todd rolled up to LAx, new passport in hand. With him were rob, fab, a small entourage, and a mountain of luggage. But Todd was organized. He was in charge. He was the manager.

So we get through security. We didn't get through security because all of a sudden, the dog, the drug sniffing dog, goes wacko over Rob.

Okay? No one had trained Todd for this situation.

So Rob and Fab are hauled into this room and strip searched.

Then Todd got called in. He found Rob yelling at the cops.

Don'T you know who we are? We're really manufacturing. Rob was just absolutely livid. He was so pissed.

He was also in his skivvies.

They wore these little bikini underwears. Oh, God, this is not happening.

Oh, Todd. It was definitely happening. But luckily, Rob wasn't carrying any drugs. He just partied too much the night before.

And what happens is, it comes through. If they sweat or anything, it comes through the pores, and the dogs can pick up on that scent.

But while they can get you for carrying drugs, they can't get you for sweating them out. Just a little pro tip for y'all. So Rob and Fab were given back their clothes and allowed to get on the plane. And Todd let out a huge sigh of relief. He had no idea what else was in store. And he'd never met Frank Ferrian. Once the wheels touched down on the tarmac in Germany, it was off to the races. First stop, dinner with Frank and Ingrid.

It was so awkward because I sat there. I was the only American there. I think there was, like, six or eight people, and they were all talking German. But me.

Todd didn't speak a lick of German. He was fighting jet lag. But even he could tell the frank relationship was charged.

Rob was the leader. He's the a personality. And so there was a lot of friction between Rob and Frank because Frank was the boss.

As the boss, Frank controlled the purse strings, because he controlled the whole damn bank. On top of cashing out royalties as a producer, Frank was also getting paid as a songwriter and a publisher. The man was getting stupid rich off Millie Vanilli. And the guys, well, their main source of income was a monthly allowance doled out by Frank.

He gave them increments so that he could keep them in line, because they really were puppets.

And Frank wanted to remind them he was the puppet master.

I mean, Frank dangled a carrot in front of their noses. You know, I'll pay you this if you'll do this. And you know, I'll pay you this if you do this.

That european promo tour was ten weeks of nonstop work. Appearances, videos, photo shoots, interviews from Germany to Spain to the Netherlands to France and back again. And Todd, in his role as glorified babysitter is what it is, found himself in the middle of it all, a full on carrot dispenser.

Rob and Fabrice could make it difficult, too. They got increasingly difficult. The more famous they got. I mean, it could be as simple as, they're mad because they don't have sushi in their dressing room, or, we didn't get a hotel with tennis courts.

Rob was no fool. Outside of the music industry, no one knew Frank Farian's name, but everyone knew who Rob and Fab were. So if Frank was going to pull their strings, Rob was going to pull it right back.

Rob would say, I'm not going to Germany, and doing the blame it on the rain video. If you don't do this, this and this, you know, pay us a certain amount.

And almost every time Frank paid, maybe it was time for Rob to pull a little harder. It was 05:00 a.m. In Barcelona. Todd was pacing his hotel room. He hadn't slept a wink. The guys were scheduled to do a morning appearance on a spanish tv show.

I had to have them on set by 7730 at the latest.

But they were nowhere to be found. He kept calling their room. This was bad, really bad.

If I don't find Rob and fab, Frank is gonna be through the roof, because this is a big deal.

Todd was a wreck. But then there they were.

Todd, we have to talk. We're quitting. We're dead. Bucquili. Milli vanilli. We're gonna come back as Robin. Fab.

Todd was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait. Now. Slow down. What are you talking about? Turns out that Todd had never been let in on the little secret at the center of Millie. Vanilli.

They told me the whole thing, that they didn't sing, and they couldn't live the lie anymore.

Todd called his boss, Sandy, and I.

Said, you know, we got a big problem, because Rob and Fab want to quit. And I know the truth, and I wish I would have known it earlier.

Sandy ignored that part.

And he's like, well, you cannot let them quit, no matter what. Tell them I'll call them in five minutes.

Todd tried to stay calm. Millions of dollars were on the line. He needed to figure out what he could give the guys to get them to stay.

They wanted to sing on the second record, and they basically put everybody on notice. Frank and Sandy and everybody.

Frank either needed to let them sing or let them go.

They thought, we're big enough and powerful enough now and popular enough that we'll just go off and start, you know, robbing fab and do our own thing.

Sandy called the guys and reassured them.

Yes, we will work with Frank.

But Todd wasn't so sure.

Well, that sounded good in theory, but first of all, Frank is a control freak, and he was the boss. He wasn't gonna have any of this.

There were also contracts and confidentiality agreements.

So it wasn't that easy to just walk away.

Not to mention millions of dollars on the line.

I was stuck in the middle of the most horrific mess in the pop music business, and it was all I could do. I mean, Sandy said, sink or swim. I mean, I swam, but let me tell you, I was barely keeping my head above water, because it was just nonstop drama.

Oh, there was gonna be drama, all right. Just as Todd became the newest keeper of the biggest secret in pop music, he got the answer to that little fax he'd sent off to the recording academy. Milli Vanilli was nominated for a Grammy for best new artist.

I remember Rob saying, oh, sparks are gonna fly.

Oh, Todd, what have you done?

We were like, oh my God, that's the last thing we wanted.

That's on the next episode of blame it on the Fame. Follow blame it on the fame, Milli Vanilli, on the Wondry Apple, Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad free by joining Wondry in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondry.com. Survey from Wondry. This is episode three of six of blame it on the fame, a series about the lie that shot to number one and what it cost to tell the truth. Blame it on the fame is hosted by me, Amanda Seals. I also host another podcast called Small Doses that you should check out. Producers are Melissa Duenas and James Edwards. Senior producer is Julia Lowery Henderson. Senior story editor is Natalie She Shaw. Production assistance by Sam Hobson, Emily Locke, and Christy Tywo Macinjula. Additional reporting by Kirsten Siln additional writing from Kristin Tucker and Pia Wilson. Post production services are provided by Ultraviolet with mixing and sound design by Matt Boynton. Original music and additional sound design design by David Bowman. Music supervisor is Scott Velasquez. For free son sync. Sound supervisor is Marcelino Villapando.

Additional research and fact checking by Bharan Duttla. Senior managing producer is Latta Pandia. Managing producer is Olivia Weber and coordinating producer is Heather Baloga. Executive producers are George Lavender, Marshall Louie, and Jen Sargent. For Wondry.