Do we like them?Do we like Lalisa Manobal?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Decent and generous with one real stain: the trainee-era slur clip she has apologised for, with nothing harmful of her own since turned up.
Lisa is the Thai kid who made it to the top of K-pop. She grew up in Thailand and trained at YG Entertainment as a teenager alongside her future Blackpink bandmates, before the group became one of the biggest girl groups on the planet. These days she runs her solo career too, and she has just become the first K-pop act to announce a Las Vegas residency.
The big stain is a leaked clip from her trainee days, more than a decade old, in which she used the N-word. It surfaced before her 2025 Coachella set and then appeared in the documentary Always Lalisa. She told Variety she had to apologise, that she grew up in Thailand with no education on the issue, and that “This is not OK. Seriously.” She said she would never use the word again.
On the harm check, that clip is the only thing that turned up. I found no words or campaigning from her against LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants, vaccines or the climate. Her recent work includes collaborations with big names in pop and hip-hop, and nothing in what I read ties her to a slide into grievance or conspiracy theories. An apology only counts when behaviour stays changed, and so far nothing since shows otherwise. Hence an asterisk rather than a clean pass.
She also copped a fair bit of online fury at the 2025 Met Gala, when some social media users said her Louis Vuitton look featured Rosa Parks. A representative for the artist whose work inspired the lace said the figure was not Rosa Parks but one of the artist's neighbours. So that one was a misreading rather than something she did.
Her money has been a target too. In 2020 a report alleged her former manager took about 1 billion won from her, which he had promised to invest. YG confirmed the matter, said he had left the company and had repaid some of it, and said he had agreed to repay the rest. The article reports no charges or court ruling, so she was the one who got burnt there.
The latest stoush was a fan one. After Blackpink's modest 10th anniversary event in August, fans were upset it was poorly organised and small. Lisa posted a message saying she was “truly sorry” and wanted to acknowledge the bond with fans. Jisoo and Rosé had apologised earlier that week, so she was not the only one copping it.