After the original singers of Milli Vanilli asserted that they had no intentions of performing at the polarizing Great American State Fair this summer — writing that anyone on the lineup performing under the band’s name had “no association” with them — Fab Morvan has announced that he’s pulling out of the festival.
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Speaking to CNN on Monday (June 1) — a few days after Milli Vanilli vocalists Jodie Rocco, Linda Rocco, Brad Howell, John Davis and Charles Shaw posted their statement — Morvan shared that he’d decided to remove himself from the lineup. He joins an exodus of artists previously announced as part of the Freedom 250 event’s billing who have since dropped out, including Young MC, Martina McBride and The Commodores.
“This is not what I signed up for,” the performer told the outlet.
Morvan explained that he’d originally agreed to the opportunity to represent Milli Vanilli at the United States 250th anniversary event in Washington, D.C., because it had been pitched to him as a “special moment” for the country. “When I saw Young MC pull out, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s weird. Why is he pulling out? Does he know anything that I don’t know?’” the German performer recalled.
“Then, one after the next, people started to leave, but I was told by my team, who was told by another team, ‘There’s nothing, no political entanglement … it’s just a free show for the people,’” he continued.
Ultimately, regardless of the intentions behind the festival, Morvan decided to withdraw because “throughout the week, it turned into a circus.”
“I’m here to bring people together,” he added. “I’m stepping out in peace.”
Milli Vanilli was originally just a duo comprised of Morvan and the late Rob Pilatus — at least as far as the public knew until 1990, when it came out that the two men had been lip-synching to vocals actually recorded by the Rocco sisters, Howell, Davis and Shaw. The following year, those five vocalists released an album titled The Real Milli Vanilli.
Morvan, on the other hand, has since obtained the rights to perform under the Milli Vanilli name. “For a long while I wasn’t allowed to use it,” he told The Guardian in February. “Now I’m playing concerts to thousands of people with a band and me singing, no backing tapes.”
But there appears to be tensions between the surviving face of Milli Vanilli and its “real” singers, as Jodie Rocco wrote May 28 on her Facebook page after Freedom 250 unveiled its initial lineup: “So, let me get this straight … ‘Milli Vanilli’ will be represented by Fab Morvan, who never sang a note on any of the 46 tracks we recorded.”
“I guess Freedom 250 feels they exemplify the best of American music, even though [Morvan and Pilatus are] German and they’re fakes,” she’d continued. “If this is true, it is shamefully awful. And selfish. And denigrating to my sister Linda, me, Brad Howell, John Davis and Charles Shaw. Dragging our name through the muck and mire yet again.”
Though billed as a nonpartisan event intended to celebrate the 250th birthday of the U.S., the Great American State Fair has proven controversial given some people’s issues with the state of the country’s politics in 2026 and with Donald Trump’s involvement in the event. “I understand Artists are getting ‘the yips’ having to do with their performance on Wednesday,” the president wrote on Truth Social after many artists dropped out of the festival.
“So I am thinking about bringing the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World,” he continued, “the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, and he does so without a guitar, the man who loves our Country more than anyone else, and the man who some say is the Greatest President in History (THE GOAT!), DONALD J. TRUMP, to take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate ‘Artists,’ and give a major speech, rallying the Country forward like I have done ever since being President!”
