Inside the room: What it was like to be with Blackpink's Lisa as race scandal eruptedFilm-maker Sue Kim talks about having unprecedented access to K-Pop idol Lisa Manobal at her most candid.9 mins agoCulture

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.

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 in an interview with Variety, although some people remained unconvinced).

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.”

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

In the film, the singer receives death threats, but presses ahead with public appearances while safety concerns 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 sanitised celebrity profiles, Kim’s portrayal of upheaval and discomfort is unusual. She asks Lisa about bad reviews, and captures the star being scolded by her vocal coach for lack of effort.

That said, the documentary was commissioned by the film division of the star’s record label (which also made the recent, and much less revealing, Oasis documentary), so it is still ultimately a marketing product.

Even the most abrasive moments are calibrated to present Lisa in a good light – but the director credits the star with ensuring the film was not a mere 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 film’s main storyline is about Lisa taking a break from K-pop to pursue 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 trapped 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 cut ties with Korean entertainment company YG, who 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.”

The potential rewards for going solo were phenomenal – but so were the risks.

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

At the age of 25, she is still curiously child-like. The fierce independence of her solo single New Woman sounds more like aspiration than fact.

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

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

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

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

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

Kim did not partake in the hedonism. In fact, the film-maker and her crew were regularly falling 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 clearly 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.”

In the year since, Lisa has already wrapped up her Blackpink duties and started 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.”