Thai singer and actress Lalisa Manobal, known as Lisa, member of the K-pop group Blackpink
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Parker Posey’s Southern accent may be the breakout star of this season of The White Lotus, but the most famous member of the cast is not Posey, nor Aimee Lou Wood’s teeth, nor nepo baby Patrick Schwarzenegger. It is, in fact, the humble Mook: real-name Lisa, with a not-so-humble 105 million followers on Instagram.
She is, in the words of fellow cast member Jason Isaacs, ‘one of the most famous people in the entire world… more famous than Jesus and Elvis’. Director Mike White says that she is Thailand’s ‘Taylor Swift meets Princess Diana’. And yet Isaacs and White says that they, and many others in the cast, had no idea who she was. So just who is Lisa, outside of her White Lotus wellness-consultant role?
Blackpink arrive at Buckingham Palace for the State Banquet for the Republic of Korea, 2023
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Before she took to the screen in The White Lotus, Lisa made her name in K-pop band Blackpink – the South Korean girl group who found global fame with their songs “Kill This Love” and “How You Like That”, becoming one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. (Think Gen Z’s answer to the Spice Girls.) Born in Thailand in 1997, and raised by her Thai mother and Swiss stepfather, she legally changed her name to ‘Lalisa’ on the advice of a fortune teller: it means ‘the one being praised’. That prediction was right on the mark: After finding mega success with Blackpink, Lisa launched her solo career in 2021, and has since broken a record held by Taylor Swift – for the most-viewed video by a soloist in 24 hours – and become the first K-pop artist to have a song reach one billion streams on Spotify.
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Naturally, with global success comes global glamour. Her appearance in The White Lotus has garnered numerous Hollywood invitations – even in advance of the series being released. In March, she walked the Oscars red carpet wearing a sleek Markgong deconstructed tuxedo dress, and in November, she graced the cover of Vanity Fair’s Hollywood issue alongside Zendaya, Nicole Kidman and Josh O’Connor. If she’s looking to build her silver-screen connections, she’s certainly in the right place: it was reported last April that she purchased a $3.95 million home in Beverly Hills. But one can only imagine that she doesn’t like to stay in one place for too long: she also has a $5.5 million duplex in Seoul and gets around in her Ferrari Purosangue or Mercedes Benz G-63 Mansory (when she’s not in her boyfriend’s private jet, that is, but more on that later).
Pictured with former Tatler cover star Paris Hilton
Jeff Kravitz
And what about her wardrobe? There’s no such thing as slim pickings for Lisa. After all, she was announced as a global ambassador for Celine in September 2020, credited as having been a ‘muse’ to then creative director Hedi Slimane. Around the same time, she was appointed as an ambassador for Italian jewellery house Bulgari, and last July was snapped up by Louis Vuitton. Since then, she’s appeared in the front row at Paris Fashion Week, chatting up a storm with Anna Wintour, no less; stolen the show at Bulgari’s Venice high jewellery showcase and showed off plenty of LV outfits on her Instagram.
She’s got beauty, she’s got grace – and she’s got connections. After all, how many pop princesses dine at Buckingham Palace? In 2023, Blackpink became only the second girl group ever to receive a coveted invitation to the palace (first was the Spice Girls) when they attended the State Banquet for the Republic of Korea. Here, they mixed with the King and Queen, Prince and Princess of Wales, and then prime minister Rishi Sunak, all while dining on pheasant, mango ice cream bombes and a 1989 Château Mouton-Rothschild. Lisa dazzled in a sparkling Georges Hobeika cape dress, accessorised with Bulgari jewellery and a Fendi bag. As part of the same visit, Blackpink were awarded Honorary MBEs for their role as COP26 Advocates for the UN climate change summit held in Glasgow in 2021, a moment Lisa said she would ‘forever cherish’.
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And it’s not just us Brits Lisa’s cosy with. The star was spotted sharing an umbrella with French First Lady Brigitte Macron in January last year during a charity event at Disneyland Paris. She also performed at the First Lady’s Le Gala des Pièces Jaunes, a concert that raises money for children in hospital (in custom Loewe, no less).
Could her closeness to the French first family be anything to do with her billionaire French boyfriend? Lisa is reportedly in a relationship with Frédéric Arnault, the son of luxury conglomerate LVMH boss Bernard, who is worth over $180 billion. This is the real-life Succession family: Frédéric was, until recently, the chief executive of LVMH’s watches division, but has since been promoted to CEO of Loro Piana. It seems likely that their paths first crossed after Lisa was announced as a Bulgari ambassador in 2020 (indeed, keen fans have since noticed that the first Instagram post of Lisa’s that he liked is a Bulgari promotion), but they were only publicly associated for the first time when Frédéric posted on Instagram about attending Blackpink’s Los Angeles concert in November 2022.
Frédéric Arnault and Lisa made a rare public appearance together at the Miami Grand Prix in May 2024
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Since then, Arnault has been pictured supporting Lisa during Blackpink’s headline Coachella performance in 2023, with her at last year’s Miami Grand Prix and even covertly arriving at The White Lotus Season 3 Bangkok premiere on Valentine’s Day – even if he did eschew the red carpet. While neither has ever confirmed the relationship, Lisa did tell Elle Taiwan that she was learning French in her January 2024 cover interview, and later sang about a ‘green-eyed French boy [who] got me trippin’ in “Moonlit Floor”. Incidentally, when Lisa first performed that song at the Global Citizen Festival in New York, the pair were spotted dining together earlier in the day.
So what does life look like for this couple? Dates at the Rodin Museum, matching watches and exploring Thailand together. Frédéric is quite the romantic, it seems, having sat in the audience every night of her residency at storied Parisian cabaret club Crazy Horse, celebrating the finale with dinner at Caviar Kaspia before a party at L’Arc Paris. He even reportedly once sent his private jet to pick her up so that she could spend his birthday with him. The Arnault family have been just as welcoming, with Lisa having joined on a yacht trip to Italy and a dinner at the 12-table, celebrity-favourite, Parisian restaurant Chez l’Ami Louis last summer.
She can sing, she can dance, she can act. But this triple-threat is high fashion and high octane. So where will Lisa go next? Who knows, but it’s guaranteed to be glamorous.
