Jennie Is Going Her Own Way (2024)

When Jennie steps out in public, it is practically an act of bravery. The mononymous global pop star, fashion icon, and, most notably, member of the record-shattering K-pop group Blackpink is so inundated with paparazzi at Fashion Week and obsessed over by fans at shows that even the most mundane aspects of her life can trigger international news cycles. The majority of her adulthood has been a commitment to country and fandom, so she’s practiced in being observed; when she notices it, she sits up straighter, smiles a bit brighter, works a little harder. She can’t place when that started happening exactly, but it’s something she’s learned she can turn on, especially when she performs: “Anyone who meets me will say I’m so far from what I represent as me onstage,” she says. “I would never say that I’m lying there. It’s a part of me, a switch inside of me that I can just click.”

When we meet on a summer night in Hollywood, she’s just come off two straight weeks in the studio, working on her forthcoming debut solo album. She’s been poring over lyrics to make sure her semantics are narratively sound and “cutting, cutting, cutting” vocals from “morning to night.” It’s currently past dinnertime, and she’s lounging in a cropped black T-shirt and joggers in an empty office next to the photo studio where she’s just finished a shoot. A little nylon Jacquemus bag with a stuffed-teddy-bear charm sits on her chair beside her. She’s been on set all day, and if she’s tired, she hides it well; she is warm and friendly. When she laughs, she throws her head back and clutches her hands together like a child who’s just encountered her first puppy. It’s easy to see why there are TikToks devoted entirely to her wide-eyed facial expressions, including the specific way she pouts.

Jennie weighs the possibility of going out before tomorrow’s flight back to Seoul. “I never get to see my friends because I’m constantly either tired or working, so when I have some time off, being the 28-year-old Jennie is the best thing I could ask for,” she tells me. (Earlier in the week, photographs of a night out with influencers Simi and Haze Khadra and Blackpink singer Rosé tore through fan accounts and Korean media.) She decides she wants to take it easy and order in, maybe pour herself a glass of wine and watch some TV. “Right now, I’m really into Game of Thrones. When I get home at 11:00 p.m., I’ll wash up, get in bed, and watch two episodes. It’s the most relaxing thing for me.”

It’s impossible to understand Jennie without understanding K-pop, the $10-billion-a-year industry so vital to South Korea’s national identity that the government has funded the development and global marketing of the industry for decades. K-pop “idols,” as stars like Jennie are called, first rose to prominence in the 1990s with hallyu (or “the Korean wave”), a phenomenon reflective of the government’s promotion of Korean culture abroad. (Remember when you first saw “Gangnam Style” and BTS infiltrate the American pop consciousness in the 2010s? That was hallyu 2.0.) Now the K-pop idol complex is so lucrative that American labels are studying its A&R strategies. The idol economy is so massive that when BTS went on hiatus last year, Korea’s GDP was projected to take a hit; idol fandom is so rabid that options for merch range from life-size cutouts to sketches of the idols’ handprints, so fans can touch palms with their favorite singer.

The road to becoming an idol begins with auditioning for a spot at a label’s training camp, a process that emulates some parts of Disney’s ’90s-era child-star machinery, Lou Pearlman’s boy-band boot camps, and competitive pep squads and color guards. Once accepted, trainees juggle language classes, study etiquette and behavior, and abide by strict expectations around diet, exercise, beauty, and style, often for years, aiming to land on a new group’s roster. The idols, in turn, act as cultural ambassadors of the Korean lifestyle and demeanor; their positive representation of the country is as crucial as the fandom or music itself. Personal goings-on are secretive and private, as intensely guarded as the crown jewels. Romantic relationships and smoking are not allowed—partially because they’re a distraction, partially because they might impede a fan’s ability to relate.

A few days after Jennie and I meet, Blackpink releases a concert film and announces a 2025 world tour to coincide with the group’s eighth anniversary with YG Entertainment, the powerhouse label also responsible for Psy and game-changing girl group 2NE1. Under YG, Blackpink has released two albums and a handful of EPs and singles, been the subject of at least three documentaries, and had its members’ lives taped for a reality TV show. They saw record-breaking sales, charting positions, and video streams, culminating in what Jennie refers to as her career highlight: being the first K-pop group to headline Coachella, in 2023.

Blackpink’s fame is such that privacy is a luxury and the tiniest bit of spontaneity from any member might become an incident. A recent clip of Jennie vaping indoors in Italy prompted an immediate formal apology statement from her reps. “What can I do? If Korean people think it’s wrong, I’ve got to make up for it,” says Jennie. She makes a point to see her fans’ concerns from their perspective. “It’s like, I get why you guys are upset. It’s cultural, it’s history. It’s time. And I can’t go against time.”

This is the dance Jennie is practicing now: balancing the magnitude and expectations of her fame with the earnest pursuit of self-discovery. She mentions going through mental and physical health struggles after years of touring and events with little privacy. (“I was just like, I can’t take this anymore.”) At the same time, she is visibly moved when discussing Blackpink’s members and all that they’ve taught her and shows a deep gratitude and softness for the fans, the Blinks, who have championed them over the years. While her solo album is a way of “bringing myself to the world for the first time,” she’s already considering the reception to that vulnerability. “I don’t want to lose their trust,” she says. “It is so important for me to have my culture, and everyone around the world, love me.”

She turns introspective, as if hyping herself up. “You should be you. It might not seem as glamorous as who you were,” she says. The thought shifts into an affirmation: “Blackpink Jennie will always be a part of me, but you will also get to experience this new side.”

Jennie’s early years were spent in the affluent Cheongdam-dong neighborhood of Seoul, until a picturesque holiday in New Zealand with her mother changed everything. Her mom asked the then 10-year-old if she’d like to go to school in Auckland; enamored by the beauty and “peaceful” energy of the country, she said yes and spent the next four years living at a homestay and attending school on a sprawling green campus near the ocean. In the documentary Blackpink: Light Up the Sky, Jennie reflects on how her studies fostered an appealing kind of independence, with classes that ranged from camping to music to art: “Even if you’re 10, you still got to make your own decisions.”

Videos from this time show her as a carefree girl playing games, running around a beach, and relying on her friends’ help learning English. Her personal Instagram account, @jennierubyjane, is a product of that era: At 11, she came up with “Ruby-Jane” as a way to expand her birth name, Jennie Kim, to include a middle name, like her classmates had. (To this day, some close friends know her more familiarly as Ruby-Jane.)

When she was 14, Jennie told her mom she wanted to become a singer; shortly after, she auditioned for YG with Rihanna’s “Take a Bow” and was accepted into its training camp in Seoul. (Early tapes from her training, including a stripped-down version of Wale’s “Lotus Flower Bomb” and the Weeknd’s “The Hills,” can still be watched on YouTube.) Six years of training later—when the final foursome of Jennie, Lisa, Jisoo, and Rosé finally came together as Blackpink—Jennie was primed to be an anchor for the group.

Entering the world of Blackpink is like going on a pink-flavored acid trip. The aesthetics are maximalist, like a techno futurist’s imagination of a Lisa Frank coloring book come to life; videos are fantastical and shot with the same pulsating rhythm as the music’s nostalgia-tinged bass. The group was named after the duality of a woman’s sweetness and darkness; in function, it’s like a PG antidote to a Bad Girls Club. Listen to Blackpink’s most popular songs and you’ll learn its members’ venom is pink, their love needs to be shut down, and their catchiest hook (“Look at you, now look at me! Uh!”) displays a kind of taunt they’re far too tactful to wield in person.

All of the girls in the group have a role: Jisoo is mature and restrained, Rosé is gentle and soulful, Lisa is cheeky and jubilant, and Jennie is the coy assassin, a smoldering wild card with a delivery that could kill. If you canned them into Spice Girls cosplay, Jennie would be Posh Spice on the streets and Mel B in the beats. (The group’s hitmaking producer Teddy Park once also dubbed her the “perfectionist.”) Their world is magnetic to the West’s biggest stars too; in recent years, they’ve released collaborations with Lady Gaga, Selena Gomez, Cardi B, and Dua Lipa, among others. Harry Styles’s mere attendance at a Blackpink show—and his subsequent follow of Jennie on Instagram—sparked fan rumors about possible chemistry between the two. When Taylor Swift saw them at the VMAs in 2022, a video of her singing along to the “Pink Venom” line “Look what you made us do” went viral.

In 2018, Jennie took the first step toward going it alone. With the release of “Solo,” she became the first Korean female solo artist to top the global iTunes songs chart; the video became the first by a Korean woman soloist to pass one billion views on YouTube. For her second single, “You & Me,” she enlisted Sailor Moon creator Naoko Takeuchi to create cover art and aesthetics. And this year, Jennie collaborated on “Slow Motion,” a one-off single from Matt Champion’s (formerly of Brockhampton) solo album. The quiet ballad shows Jennie at her softest, a possible sign of where she’s heading next. Champion says that collaborating with Jennie felt easy, even as she was trying something new: “I wasn’t sure how much she had used her voice like that, but she sounded incredible.”

Deb Never, a friend and fellow musician, echoes Champion, noting Jennie’s versatility as a key to her success. She tells me that Jennie’s most impressive trait is the way she holds two opposing versions of herself at once. After they first met, it took Deb two weeks to even realize that her new friend Jennie was the Jennie from Blackpink. “She’s shy and really humble and very sweet,” she says. “And then as soon as it comes to music and how she performs, it’s this flip side, this opposite person where it’s like in your face and very outspoken. It’s not like she’s acting. It’s being able to let out a whole other side of you that you don’t get to in real life. There’s a vulnerability in that.”

Watch enough of Jennie’s videos and you’ll notice her dripping in Chanel’s double Cs and signature tweeds. Some fashion bloggers have even taken to calling her the “Human Chanel.” She began working with the brand when Karl Lagerfeld was still alive. “Just the fact that I got to talk to him, to have him see me wearing what he made—all of that was enough,” she says reverently, describing the time the two met. “I am still very honored.”

Jennie credits her mom as a key to fostering her self-described “classic” sense of style. “She was Carrie from Sex and the City for me,” she says with admiration, describing her flawless ability to change outfits and day-to-day roles. Jennie raids her closet—the source of many of the ’80s and ’90s vintage tees she wears to this day—and calls on her during fashion emergencies: “When I’m at the airport … I call my mom. ‘Mom, I need a knee-length black coat. If it’s Burberry, I’ll like it, but if not, that’s cool.’ She’ll bring me a perfect [outfit] from when she wore it like 30 years ago.”

Now a mainstay of the fashion industry, Jennie is a fixture at Paris Fashion Week and has starred in campaigns for Chanel, Adidas, and Calvin Klein. (She was plastered across the latter’s iconic billboard overlooking New York’s SoHo.) In June, she walked in the Jacquemus La Casa cruise show in Capri for designer Simon Porte Jacquemus, who is a friend. When I ask if she’d do it again, she considers the possibility. “I know the hard work that goes into it, so I would never do it for fun. Once was definitely enough,” she says, laughing.

Another first came when Jennie took on the role of Dyanne in Sam Levinson’s over-the-top HBO melodrama The Idol. The show chronicles the seedy underbelly and dispiriting power dynamics of thirsty music execs and an abusive, megalomaniac producer who lords over a group of aspiring musicians. Her character, a dancer, singer, and friend to Lily-Rose Depp’s Jocelyn, is as dedicated to making it big as the rest of the cohort. “I related to Dyanne a lot. Like, a lot,” she tells me. “Wanting to become a super pop star is something I could easily just tune myself into.” We talk about her friendship with Depp and how the subversive idea of the show appealed to her: “Having the idea of this evil person coming in and trying to manipulate, I’ve been in that world my whole life.”

Jennie and I have been chatting for a while, and she’s folded one leg under her, cozying up to the arm of her chair. We return to what it’s like regulating her always-on public persona and introverted personal self. “It’s always been a question mark for me too. What’s wrong with me?!” she says, gently smiling. Being in the studio, touching every part of the new album, from production to design, has helped her process what inspires and motivates her now. “I spent six years as a trainee, and throughout that process, I was so focused on becoming a performer, I didn’t really understand the meaning of becoming an artist.” Performing, she says, was so powerfully reflexive that it was all systems go, at full speed, every time. Now she’s learning to listen to herself: “If I’m doing hardcore choreography, I know that I’m not capable of doing that while I’m blasting sync, doing it live, looking perfect. There’s all these different levels, volumes of energy that I have, but I only learned how to turn it up to the max.”

“You’re modulating,” I suggest.

She nods. “For the first time, I’m learning, ‘Oh, this should go down a little.’ It’s almost like I’m doing it backwards.”

The process of making the album has been therapeutic, a way for Jennie to work it all out. She has a voracious work ethic, but she tells me she is making sure to take care of herself by scheduling wellness, or, as she calls it, “self-love.” “I love me a sound bath. I’m in the sauna all the time, in an ice plunge, getting a massage. I love taking care of my body,” she says with the giddiness of someone who has more than earned it.

Over the course of our conversation, Jennie is hesitant to share too much about how the project has been developing, but she’s proud that it will be made on her own terms and released on OA, the label she started in 2023. She’s focused on recording primarily in English and hints that it will include a range of genres. While she won’t reveal if her old friend Teddy Park will be involved, she still turns to him as a sounding board. “If there is anyone in the world that I ask for any music advice, it would be Teddy.” She hopes to inspire other young women, with one key message of the album being “to understand and stick [up] for who you are.”

This reminds me of when we talked about the pressures of walking between two worlds, reconciling Jennie’s deep loyalty and love for her Korean culture with her aspiration to be more forthcoming about who she really is. She had sighed, seemingly with the weight of responsibility, and was the most openly emotional I had seen her. “I believe that I have learned,” she said. “I have gained the trust from people to kind of break those boundaries and just open that little gap for our culture.”

This article appears in the October issue of Harper’s Bazaar.

Opening Image: Jacquemus dress with bodysuit.

Hair: Gabe Sin; makeup: Sol Lee; manicure: Zola Ganzorigt for OPI; production: Ben Gutierrez at AP Studio, Inc; set design: Spencer Vrooman. For more shopping information, go to bazaar.com/credits.