Lisa looks bewildered. She raises her eyebrows slightly and purses her lips, looking out from under her flawless, walnut-brown bangs. She tries to answer a question that to most people qualifies as Small Talk 101, but to her is a Sphinx-level riddle: “Where do you live?”
“I can't figure out where I'm based,” he says, breaking into giddy laughter. As one quarter of the record-breaking, superlative-defying K-pop girl group Blackpink, she called Seoul home. But now? He's everywhere: Los Angeles, where we meet and where he spends a lot of time recording new music. His native Thailand, where he also filmed the highly anticipated third season of HBO's The White Lotus. and Paris, where you can find her front row at fashion shows as the new ambassador for Louis Vuitton. “I don't even know what time zone I'm in now,” says Lisa, dressed in a Kith jacket and baggy Celine jeans, as she sips orange juice in a hidden booth of the star-friendly Polo Lounge at The Beverly Hills Hotel.
In her rare downtime, 27-year-old Lisa (aka Lalisa Manobal) likes to hit up Pop Mart, the international chain of toy stores whose adorable characters she can't get enough of. (He once visited three different locations in Paris in one day in search of a rare figurine, and jokes that he has more collectibles than furniture: “I don't have room to walk anymore!”) Otherwise, he'll seek out the best Thai food wherever it is. Everyone in Los Angeles tells her to go to Anajak or Jitlada, two local culinary institutions, “but it's not the OG flavor for me,” she says. “It doesn't taste like home. It tastes different.” Prefers Ruen Pair.
Read Lisa's full Billboard cover story here.
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