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Performer Rob Pilatus, who sang and danced in the '80s pop-vocal group Milli Vanilli, was pronounced dead on Thursday evening after apparently overdosing on alcohol and pills in a German hotel room. He was 33.|
The German-born model and his cohort Fabrice Morvan stormed the charts in the late '80s with their debut album, Girl You Know It's True. They later shocked the music world when it was learned that the Best New Artist Grammy winners lip-synched the lyrics on the album.
After public disgrace tossed him out of the limelight, and the academy revoked his Grammy, Pilatus spent the early '90s checking in and out of rehab programs for a reported cocaine addiction and seemed to find a permanent place in the news due to several fall-outs with police.
The group's manager, Frank Farian, who single-handedly turned Pilatus and Morvan into musical outcasts by exposing their singing sham, told the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag that although he had known Pilatus had been drinking heavily on Thursday he was unaware the former entertainer had been taking pills. Pilatus was found alone in a Frankfurt hotel room and had apparently been dead for 18 hours.
A police report on Monday said there were no signs of suicide,
but rather that Pilatus' death was an accidental overdose. (Lana
Fanelli)