Inside the room: What it was like to be with Blackpink's Lisa as race scandal erupted

Inside the room: What it was like to be with Blackpink's Lisa as race scandal erupted

Lisa, who was born Pranpriya Manobal in Thailand, rose to become one of the world’s most recognisable K-pop idols as a member of Blackpink.

What is it like to be the central figure in an online scandal?

That is one of the questions explored in a new documentary about Lisa Manobal — one quarter of K-pop sensation Blackpink and a breakout star of the TV series The White Lotus.

The film follows a controversy as it unfolds, after leaked videos showed Blackpink using racial slurs when they were teenage trainees in the K-pop system.

The clips, which surfaced last year, showed the group performing US rap songs during rehearsals. Explicit language, including the n-word, was left uncensored.

The scandal erupted while Lisa was rehearsing for a key performance at the Coachella Festival in 2025.

Angry and hurt, some fans called for an apology — but the band’s record label barred the members from making any statement.

With Lisa’s team in crisis mode, documentary-maker Sue Kim followed Lisa into her dressing room.

“I said, ‘Look, I know this is new. I know you guys are wildly confused and hurt, but this is your time to say whatever you want to say - even if you’re just processing your thoughts and telling us what you’re feeling,” Kim tells the BBC.

The filmmaker “honestly expected her to say no”.

Instead, Lisa lay on a sofa and spoke from the heart.

“It’s bad,” the singer says in the documentary, sounding both ashamed and nervous.

Lisa says she was “15 or 16” when the videos were filmed and “didn’t know that [word] was sensitive because I’m from Thailand and my first language is not English”.

She says she had only heard the term in rap music and did not know its offensive history.

“Now I would never ever do that because, now, I’ve got education,” she says. “Now I know better.

“But I did wrong.”

It is a vulnerable, human response — and nothing like the scripted PR apology one might expect.

Kim says Lisa’s spontaneous reaction is “one of the most important scenes” in her documentary, Always Lalisa, which arrives in cinemas on Monday, 12 October.

“There was no premeditation on Lisa’s part, there was no media training,” she adds.

“I asked her one question and she just talked for an hour, and everything came out, and it’s all stream of consciousness.

“And what you see with Lisa in that moment is so genuine, it’s impossible not to feel compassion for her.”

The incident overshadowed what was meant to be a triumphant launch for Lisa’s debut solo album, Alter Ego.

In the film, the singer receives death threats, but continues with public appearances while safety worries are “spinning in my head”.

“To a certain extent I have to take [criticism] and compromise,” she says, exhausted, “but sometimes, it’s too much”.

In a world of polished celebrity profiles, Kim’s depiction of turmoil and discomfort is unusual. She asks Lisa about bad reviews and films the star being reprimanded by her vocal coach for not putting in enough effort.

Even the harshest moments are shaped to present Lisa in a favourable light — but the director credits the star with making sure the film was not simply a puff piece.

“You never know when you meet an artist how transparent they’ll be. And I have to give all credit to Lisa because she allowed us almost total access,” Kim says.

“And when I showed her the film, she never asked me to remove a single scene. That’s exceptional.”

The documentary captures Lisa’s joy — and relief — after she pulled off the hour-long show.

The film’s central story is about Lisa stepping away from K-pop to chase crossover success in the Western music market.

When we meet her, she is one of the world’s most famous women, with millions of record sales and brand deals with Louis Vuitton and Bvlgari.

But she is constrained by a K-pop system that forbids her from drinking alcohol and having adult relationships.

“I don’t want my dating to be the thing to hurt Blackpink’s popularity,” she says in the film. “But when I turned 25, I realised that this is not how you’re supposed to live your life.”

As a result, Lisa makes an early decision to sever ties with Korean entertainment company YG, which discovered her as a teenager, and signs a new deal with RCA Records in the US.

“Knowing her as I do, that took an immense amount of courage,” says Kim.

“In general, she is a very kind, sweet person - and sometimes personalities like that, they don’t want to rock the boat.

“Having been trained in the K-pop system from an early age, she grew acclimatised to obedience. Declaring that she wants a break is such a disruption to that way of life that I can only imagine it must have been building inside her for years.”

Blackpink are one of K-pop’s biggest bands, with hits like Whistle, How You Like That and Kill This Love.

The possible rewards of going solo were enormous — but so were the risks.

In the film, we see Lisa struggling to assert herself in the recording studio, and tearfully fighting nerves about her singing voice.

At 25, she is still strikingly child-like. The fierce independence suggested by her solo single New Woman sounds more like aspiration than reality.

Kim says that started to shift as they filmed.

“I saw a person who was very tentative and unsure of herself slowly starting to unfold her wings. Making mistakes, but also getting back up on the horse.”

Kim finds an inner confidence in early home videos of Lisa competing in talent shows, drawing comparisons between that precocious seven-year-old and the young woman who is gradually reclaiming her agency.

She persistently pursues a role in the third season of hit TV drama The White Lotus, self-taping an audition that lands her the part of kind-hearted wellness coach Mook Sornsin.

On set, she shakes off the restrictive moral code of her pop career.

“Lisa threw more parties than anyone else,” says the show’s executive producer in an interview.

“And the defining characteristic of a Lisa party is tequila shots.”

Kim did not join in the hedonism. In fact, the filmmaker and her crew were regularly getting sick as they tried to keep up with Lisa’s ridiculous schedule.

“But when we premiered the film in Toronto, Lisa found me and she brought bottles of tequila, and that was like the perfect christening of the film,” she laughs.

The movie ends in June 2025 as Lisa returns to Seoul and rejoins Blackpink. As she unpacks her bags, she is plainly conflicted.

“It’s bittersweet, and I think that’s OK,” says Kim.

“I don’t think people should take it as like, ‘Oh, she hates Blackpink’. It’s more that she was reflecting on this year of freedom and worrying that she wouldn’t be able to retain that. And that’s a very astute fear to have.”

Lisa won the award for best pop act at this year’s MTV Awards, becoming the first K-pop star to lift the trophy.

In the year since, Lisa has already completed her Blackpink commitments and begun phase two of her solo career with the single Sawadika. Kim says she is not surprised.

“Spending the year away from the K-pop system in the US really opened her horizons,” the director says.

“She was exposed to a different kind of entertainment system where they’re not held to a vow of chastity. If two star performers link up, it’s almost like they get more power.

“That gave her a sense of like, ‘Oh, I could have a different life. I might not lose my career if I want to get married and have children’.

“So I think part of the reason why Lisa’s interested in continuing her solo career is that it might give her a little bit more personal freedom to be who she is.”