Milli Vanilli to Forfeit Best New Artist Grammy

Milli Vanilli’s Robert Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan intend to give back their 1989 best new artist Grammy to the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences at a press conference in Hollywood on Tuesday.

“We know that we were involved in something that was wrong,” Morvan told The Times over the weekend.

“Fabrice and I want to give the Grammy back to the real singers,” Pilatus said.

Questions about whether Milli Vanilli’s Grammy should be revoked arose last week after the duo’s German-based producer, Frank Farian, fired them and announced that Pilatus and Morvan--known respectively as Rob and Fab--did not sing on their “Girl, You Know It’s True” album, which has sold an estimated 7 million copies. Milli Vanilli’s 1989 Grammy was awarded last February.

The Grammy is considered to be a symbol of artistic excellence. Each year, 10,000 entries may be screened for consideration, and winners are selected by approximately 6,000 voting members of the academy. The voting membership is made up of a broad spectrum of singers, musicians, producers, engineers, songwriters, conductors and other creative figures in the recording industry.

Members of the academy base their voting decisions on the album credits provided by record companies. Morvan and Pilatus allege that top officials at Arista Records and the German conglomerate Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) were aware of the false album credits prior to their Grammy nomination.

“When it’s fraudulent or falsified in any way,” said Mike Greene, president of NARAS, at a press conference in Las Vegas on Friday, “it’s difficult for us to feel that the way our members went about voting was informed.”

As of Friday, the NARAS awards subcommittee was scheduled to meet Dec. 5 in New York to discuss revoking the award. The board of trustees is slated to meet later that month to make a final decision.

No artist in the 33-year history of the Grammys has ever been forced to give back an award. If the academy did decide to strip Milli Vanilli of the honor, Greene said he believes the organization would probably opt not to choose a replacement winner.

Morvan and Pilatus said Saturday they hoped the award would be given to vocalists Johnny Davis, Brad Howell and Charles Shaw, who allegedly performed the vocal chores on the Milli album. Davis and Shaw are credited as background vocalists on the album; Howell is not mentioned at all.

Greene said he called Arista two weeks ago and was assured the allegations were untrue.

“I called Arista to say I’d heard the rumors and ask them if there’s anything I should know about this,” Greene said at the conference. “They said, “No, no, no, that’s all malicious rumor.’ ”