Sandara Park

2NE1's visual and a star the Philippines discovered first. She walked away from helicopter-level fame in Manila to debut all over again as an idol in Korea.

Born in Busan in 1984, and yes, Sandara is her real name, a native Korean word, not a stage name. In fifth grade her family moved to Manila, where she lived for about eleven years. At first she spoke neither English nor Tagalog, kids teased her at school, and the whole family shared one room. She says that's where her shy, easily hurt side came from.

Then came 2004 and ABS-CBN's audition show Star Circle Quest. A judge grilled her on what she'd do if fans booed her, she broke down crying, and when told to smile she fought back tears and said 'Mahal ko kayo' (I love you all) in Tagalog. That line became a nationwide catchphrase. She finished runner-up but led the audience popularity vote, and her roughly 500,000 text votes in the final round were a record for a female contestant. Her debut single, In or Out, told the story of the audition and ended with that very phrase. She and winner Hero became a screen couple across variety shows, sitcoms and films, and her schedule got so packed she flew between gigs by helicopter. Filipino fans nicknamed her 'Pambansang Krung-krung', roughly the national oddball, and she's said airport staff recognized her so fast the whole team skipped the immigration line. That same year a KBS documentary brought her story home, and Korea started calling her 'the BoA of the Philippines'.

In 2007 she left all of that behind to chase her childhood dream of singing in Korea. She signed with YG Entertainment, which had been in touch since 2004 but actually planned to launch her as an actress. Yang Hyun-suk gave her one month to prove she could be a singer, and she grinded hard, learning vocals and dance from the other girls. That earned her the fourth spot in 2NE1 in 2009, and Yang later called her the most relentless member of the team. Before debut she also appeared in a Gummy music video, and her first solo song, Kiss, was a beer commercial track with Lee Min-ho in the video.

In the 2NE1 years, Dara was the hair. Her sky-high 'palm tree' updo in the Fire and Lollipop era got called a pineapple and a green onion and was parodied everywhere; it was tied up with nothing but a tight band, and she admits it hurt enough to make her cry. For I Am the Best she spiked it straight up into 'Vegeta hair', and in 2012's I Love You she shaved half her head, basically unheard of for a girl group member. The blue hair in Come Back Home was a wig paying homage to Seo Taiji, who'd released a song with the same title. Her baby face is legendary too: when she joined YG at 21, a grade-school Minzy mistook her for a fellow kid trainee and sized her up as a rival.

Vocally she sat between the heavy tones of CL and Park Bom with a thin, high, whispery delivery that balanced the mix. She's so shy she once couldn't bring herself to ask a restaurant for more side dishes, and producer Teddy summed it up as 'Dara is 4D, Bom is 8D'. Minzy remembers her as the group's mom. She's also close with labelmate G-Dragon, and a gifted jacket embroidered with the typo 'Sandari Park' went viral.

After the 2016 disbandment she built a second career on TV. She became the idol-guessing expert on the King of Masked Singer panel, and on Video Star Kim Sook dubbed her a 'soshikjwa', a tiny-eater king, which turned into a meme. Think struggling to finish one banana and describing food like noodles putting a jacket on pork trotters. She's also a certified Fin.K.L stan who once carried melons from the Philippines to Lee Hyori's front door.

She left YG in 2021 after fourteen years, and in 2022 she made fans sob when all four members reunited on CL's Coachella set, the reunion in the desert. In 2023 she dropped her first solo mini album, SANDARA PARK, and in 2026 she launched her own one-woman agency, ARADNAS, which is just her name backwards. She speaks Korean, English and Filipino.