Only later did the Villerys learn that the intruder was would-be singer Rob Pilatus, erstwhile half of Milli Vanilli, the pop duo whose meteoric rise was matched by its spectacular fall. In 1990, Pilatus and partner Fabrice Morvan won a best new artist Grammy for their hit "Girl You Know It's True"—then were stripped of the award when it was learned they hadn't actually sung a word on the album. But that was no lip-synching exhibition going on in the Villerys' driveway. As Joseph Villery restrained him, Pilatus, 31, "was making wild threats, saying he was going to kill everyone in the house," says L.A. police spokesman Eduardo Funes. As a result, Pilatus was arrested on suspicion of making a terrorist threat and released on $150,000 bail. "I am really humiliated and embarrassed," says Pilatus, who had spent the night at a nearby club, where he drank so much, he says, that he mistook the Villery car for his own. Once Villery came after him, "I tried to run into the house to get away from him," Pilatus says.
For the German-born fallen star, it was only the latest episode in a long tailspin since the career-ending scandal. In 1991 he was hospitalized after he threatened to jump from a Sunset Boulevard hotel's ninth-floor balcony. Since then, he has been in and out of drug and alcohol rehab centers. "I started snorting cocaine, and it became a mind-boggling addiction that I am fighting," he says. Ironically, it seemed Pilatus had been starting to get back on track. "I have been doing really, really good," he says. He was working on a solo album scheduled to be released this summer, and he'd been struggling to remain sober. That's been difficult, he says, because people so frequently offer him drugs and alcohol. "People do take advantage of him," says Basil Clark, his lawyer. "It is almost as if they get a vicarious thrill out of seeing you get destroyed."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
