BLACKPINK’s Lisa Opens Up on Racism Row, Threats

As of September 16, 2026, BLACKPINK's Lisa has spoken publicly for the first time about a racism scandal from her trainee days and the death threats that followed, opening up ahead of her solo documentary "Always Lalisa." She apologized, saying she grew up in Thailand and didn't understand the context of the language at the time, and said she has since moved past the experience.

13Lisa's age when YG scouted her as a trainee

10 minutesTime it took her solo Las Vegas shows to sell out

Key points

Lisa addressed the controversy directly for the first time in a US media interview tied to the documentary's release.
The video at the center of the scandal showed the members using a racial slur while rapping along to a song during their trainee years.
The person who leaked the video sent Lisa threats implying violence, and her label reportedly discouraged her from addressing it publicly at the time.
The documentary premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and opens in theaters worldwide on October 12.

The documentary chronicles the year Lisa spent stepping away from group activities to go solo. Director Sue Kim frames the film around two threads: her affection for the bandmates she's spent a decade with, and the weight of forging a new path on her own.

Back when she was still a teenage trainee, a video of BLACKPINK's members rapping along to a song and using a racial slur spread online, sparking intense backlash. Addressing it now, Lisa said she grew up in Thailand and never had the chance to learn that cultural context, apologizing and saying she's since become fully aware and won't repeat it.

The person who leaked the clip reportedly kept sending her threats implying violence. The documentary shows Lisa and her team wanting to address the controversy directly, only for their label to hold them back. The timing made it worse — it happened right before her first solo performance at Coachella, and she recalled wanting to focus purely on the show but struggling to do so.

Scouted at 13 as YG Entertainment's first foreign trainee out of a pool with odds in the thousands-to-one range, she says most of her personal life was controlled throughout her teenage years, leaving little room to express her own feelings. She described curfews and location check-ins at the dorm, along with bans on drinking, dating, getting a driver's license, or going out freely, and said she had to watch fellow trainees get cut during monthly evaluations.

She said she hopes to start a family someday and wants fans to see her as a person, not just a figure on stage. While she believes her BLACKPINK bandmates need breaks just as she did, she stressed the group will keep performing together even as they get older. She's been picking up the pace on her solo career, launching her own label, signing with a major record company, and branching into acting.

In Korea right nowIn Korean pop culture circles, attention has centered on the fact that Lisa is addressing this for the first time, a decade into her career. By tackling the sensitive combination of a global K-pop star's restricted personal life and a racism controversy head-on in documentary form, she's drawing close coverage from fandoms and entertainment outlets tracking every detail of her comments.