Do we like Lalisa Manobal?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Decent, charitable and on the right side, with one real stain (the trainee-era slur) that she has apologised for.
Lisa's story starts in Buriram, Thailand, where she was born in 1997. She passed YG Entertainment's Thailand audition at 13 and moved to South Korea in 2011 to train. She debuted with Blackpink in 2016 as the group's only Thai member, and she was the first non-Korean trainee at the label.
The solo run is the real glow-up. Her 2021 single album Lalisa set records, then she founded her own company LLOUD in 2024, acted in The White Lotus season three, and put out her debut album Alter Ego in 2025. This year she announced a Las Vegas residency, billed as the first for a K-pop act.
Now the stain. A video from her trainee days leaked in 2025, just before Coachella, showing her and bandmates rapping along to songs containing the N-word. In September she told Variety “I really have to apologise”, said nobody had educated her on it, and added “This is not OK. Seriously.” Reporting says she is so far the only member to speak up. That's the right move, even if it took a decade.
Harm check: that slur is the one real mark, and it's from when she was a teen trainee, with an apology on the record. The 2025 Met Gala row over a supposed Rosa Parks image on her outfit fizzled, with the artist's rep saying the face was one of his neighbours, and the FADER found no response from Lisa. Nothing on LGBTQ+ people, women or the planet turned up in the sources we read. The collaborators on Alter Ego, such as Doja Cat, Tyla and Megan Thee Stallion, aren't a red flag. That's a thin record on the issues, not a strong one.
Her 2023 Crazy Horse cabaret shows in Paris split opinion. Critics, including Chinese actor Xu Jiao on Weibo, said it sexualised women, while fans called it self-expression. It was a ticketed, over-16 show where she never fully undressed, which is a grey-area debate rather than a scandal.
Recent drama is mostly fandom noise. After the 10th-anniversary event on 8 August, which was announced two days ahead and livestreamed for about ten minutes, fans grumbled and some said she seemed less enthusiastic. She apologised on 14 August, saying it was meant to be a special moment for all of them. That's a decent response to a messy event.