Jennie, born Kim Jennie (김제니) on 16 January 1996 in Bundang, Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, just south of Seoul, is an only child. At around eight years old she moved with her family to Auckland, New Zealand, where she attended Waikowhai Intermediate School and later ACG Parnell College, spending roughly five years there and becoming fluent in English, according to her biography. She returned to South Korea in 2010, aged fourteen, to audition for YG Entertainment, reportedly earning her place with a cover of a Rihanna song, and trained with the company for close to six years before debuting on 8 August 2016 as a member of BLACKPINK alongside Jisoo, Rosé and Lisa, the four-piece group that went on to become one of the best-selling girl groups in K-pop history.

As BLACKPINK’s main rapper and one of its lead vocalists, Jennie was central to the group’s rapid rise following its debut with “Whistle” and “Boombayah” in August 2016, and the run of hits that followed, including “Playing with Fire” and “As If It’s Your Last”. She built an individual profile alongside the group’s own success, becoming the face of Chanel’s beauty line in South Korea from 2017 before walking her first Chanel show during Paris Fashion Week in 2018 as the house’s newly announced muse, a relationship Tatler Asia has described as having evolved from an ambassadorial role into visual shorthand for the brand. In October 2018, YG Entertainment confirmed Jennie would be the first BLACKPINK member to release a solo project, setting up the breakthrough that followed weeks later.

Jennie’s solo debut single, “SOLO”, was released on 12 November 2018, a track she co-wrote and helped produce with long-time YG collaborator Teddy Park. The single topped South Korea’s Circle Digital Chart and reached number one on the US Billboard World Digital Songs chart, making Jennie the first lead female member of a K-pop group to top that particular Billboard tally, according to Billboard’s own trade reporting on the chart run. Its music video went on to become the first by a Korean female soloist to pass one billion views on YouTube, turning “SOLO” from a group side-project into the moment Jennie became a commercially significant solo artist in her own right, years before she released a full album.

Jennie’s biggest individual milestone arrived with “Ruby”, her debut solo studio album, released on 7 March 2025 through her own label, Odd Atelier, in partnership with Columbia Records. The album sold more than one million copies worldwide in its first week, entered the top ten in nineteen countries, and became the highest-charting album by a Korean female soloist on the UK Albums Chart at number three, according to the Hollywood Reporter’s coverage of its opening week. Lead single “Mantra”, together with “Like Jennie” and “ExtraL”, each subsequently earned RIAA gold certification, making Jennie the first K-pop solo artist to hold three simultaneously gold-certified songs in the United States, while “Like Jennie” separately became the highest-charting song by a Korean female soloist on the UK Singles Chart.

Jennie’s standing in the K-pop industry is reflected in independent rankings as well as sales figures. On Forbes Korea’s 2026 Power Celebrity 40 list, Jennie placed sixteenth overall and was ranked the highest of any female solo artist on the list, an improvement of four places on the previous year, according to coverage of the list by AsiaOne. She has also been named to Time magazine’s list of the 100 Most Influential People, and has for several years been among the most-followed Korean nationals on Instagram, with a following in excess of eighty million, a level of individual social reach that few K-pop soloists, male or female, have matched.

Jennie holds one of the longest-running luxury ambassadorships of any K-pop artist. She began working with Chanel in 2017 as the face of its beauty line in South Korea, was named the brand’s muse the following year, and became a global house ambassador in 2019, a relationship the South China Morning Post has described as one of the most consistent celebrity partnerships in the house’s roster. She is also a global brand ambassador for Calvin Klein, a partnership that produced the “Jennie for Calvin Klein” capsule collection of underwear, denim and knitwear released globally in May 2023. Her endorsement portfolio additionally includes Hera cosmetics, Samsung Electronics and the Korean eyewear label Gentle Monster, for which she has co-designed two limited collections, “Jentle Home” and “Jentle Garden”.

In November 2023, Jennie founded her own entertainment company and label, Odd Atelier (OA), announcing the move weeks after BLACKPINK’s four members renewed their group contract with YG Entertainment. YG confirmed at the time that it would not be renewing individual contracts covering the members’ solo work, meaning Jennie’s own music, acting and business activities outside BLACKPINK would run through Odd Atelier while she remained with YG for group releases and tours, as Forbes reported at the time of the announcement. In September 2024, Jennie signed Odd Atelier to a deal with Columbia Records, part of Sony Music, to handle international distribution of her solo output, a partnership that produced “Mantra” the following month and, subsequently, the “Ruby” album, according to Digital Music News’s reporting on the agreement.

Jennie has made two well-documented property purchases in Seoul. In 2021 she bought a villa in the La Terrasse section of UN Village, an upscale part of the Hannam-dong district, paying roughly 5 billion won (about $3.7 million), with an initial deposit in February followed by the remaining 4.5 billion won settled in cash that November, according to VnExpress International’s reporting on the purchase. The five-bedroom property, which has Han River views, was later featured on Netflix’s “Super Rich in Korea”. In May 2025, Jennie made a considerably larger acquisition, buying a two-storey former embassy building near Hannam New Town in Yongsan District for 20 billion won (about $13.8 million) in an all-cash transaction, with the ownership transfer completed that December, as reported by the Korea JoongAng Daily.