On Monday, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences stripped Pilatus and Morvan of their 1989 best new artist Grammy, an award they won during a nationally televised program from the Shrine Auditorium in February. Last week, Farian fired Pilatus and Morvan, and all three admitted that the duo never sang on their 7 million-selling “Girl You Know It’s True” album nor at any of their other live concert performances-a nearly three-year-old secret that has haunted every step of their careers. It was like we were trapped in some golden prison.” The psychological pressure was very hard. We signed contracts as singers but were never allowed to contribute. “Rob and I never meant for it to go this way,” Morvan added. We made some very big mistakes and we apologize.” We realize exactly what we did to achieve our success. “We lied to our families and our friends. He and his partner agreed to talk to The Times and tell their story. “We sold our souls to the devil,” Pilatus said during an exclusive two-hour interview over the weekend. And it was a public that was more impressed by image than talent, more accepting of appearances than demanding of the truth.

It was the record industry’s myth-making machine built with a recording technology capable of deceit and operated by men who chose to deceive. It was two minor talents manipulated and manipulating to the top rungs of show business. Milli Vanilli was a scandal fueled, like most scandals, with ambition, greed and mendacity. Words like embarrassment or sham or hoax were too mild.

It’s a collector’s item now, for by the time the record is released in the United States, it will feature a different picture and, indeed, a different group altogether.

Producer Frank Farian, who owns the name Milli Vanilli, resisted but released in Europe early cuts from the album with Pilatus and Morvan on the cover. Pilatus and Morvan insisted that they be allowed to sing on the new record-something they hadn’t done on the first. Those would reach a critical mass as the duo and their producer prepared to release songs from their new album, “Keep on Running,” due out in January, 1991. The humiliation that “Rob” Pilatus and “Fab” Morvan suffered that summer evening on the MTV Club Tour proved to be but a hint of problems to come. “When my voice got stuck in the computer, and it just kept repeating and repeating, I panicked. “I knew right then and there, it was the beginning of the end for Milli Vanilli,” recalled Pilatus of the duo’s appearance that July, 1989, night in Bristol, Conn. And it was all built on a lie that would come to bite them all 16 months later.

Sold our souls