Blackpinks Lisa Manobal: How the K-pop star faced a race scandal

What’s it like to be the main character of an online scandal?

That’s one of the questions raised in a new documentary about Lisa Manobal – one quarter of K-pop phenomenon Blackpink and a breakout star of TV show The White Lotus.

The film captures an unfolding controversy, as leaked videos show Blackpink using racial slurs when they were teenage trainees in the K-pop system.

The clips, which emerged last year, showed the band covering US rap songs during rehearsals. Explicit language, including the n-word, was left uncensored.

The scandal blew up while Lisa was rehearsing for a pivotal performance at the Coachella Festival in 2025.

Offended and upset, some fans demanded an apology – but the band’s record label, forbade the members from issuing a statement.

With Lisa’s team in crisis mode, documentarian 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 film-maker “honestly expected her to say no”.

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

“It’s bad,” the singer says in the documentary, with a mixture of shame and nerves.

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

Having only heard the term in rap music, she was unaware of 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 and human response – and nothing like the scripted PR apology you might expect. (Lisa has since apologised publicly, external in an interview with Variety, although some people remained unconvinced, external).

Kim says Lisa’s in-the-moment reaction is “one of the most important scenes” in her documentary, Always Lalisa, which hits 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.”