Photographer Amar Taoualit Shares How He Crossed Paths with V and Jennie in Paris

Photographer Amar Taoualit Reveals How He Encountered V and Jennie in Paris in an Exclusive Interview :

There was a girl from Blackpink named Jennie, she's very famous. Blackpink is the second most well-known group, it's four girls. I don't know if you've heard of them, the group Blackpink. They're internationally famous, but they had a hidden relationship, and no one found out. In Korea, you can't just do that, there's never been any video. When they come here to Paris, they hide, you know.

One day, I don't know why, I took my bike as usual. I called some friends, and they told me they weren't around and that nothing was happening at the moment. It's true that there was no one around, just them and the paparazzi. The paparazzi I know don't cover K-pop, they usually follow Americans, etc. It's different.

I was walking around and passed by a K-pop fan I've known for a long time. She told me, "Amar, there's someone here." I said, "Yeah, I know." She said, "But Jennie is here." I said, "What do you mean?" She told me they saw her walking on the Champs-Élysées, strolling around and everything. You have to know that in Korea, when a star arrives in Paris, everyone films them. It's planned, you see their arrival at the airport. You would see Jennie being filmed, so you know she's in Paris. But at that time, Jennie was in Thailand, so there were no cameras in Thailand, etc. No one knew, she arrived quietly, like for a vacation. But he came for Celine, etc.

That day, she told me that, and I said, "Okay, fine, I'll go get something to eat." It was around 6 PM, maybe 8 PM, and I was riding my bike, etc. I arrived at Matignon, you know, the hotel, the restaurant, the club. I saw a car that looked familiar, a celebrity car, etc. You have to know that across from Matignon, there's a bus station. I sat there, just in case. I waited for about an hour, an hour and a half. It was really 10 PM. I waited from 8 PM to 11 PM. I almost fell asleep at the bus stop. And suddenly, I looked up and saw two people coming out, holding hands. I quickly made a video. They got into a van. I sent the video to my friend. She immediately replied, "But that's Jennie and V together!" No one had ever seen that before.

So, I ran like crazy. I ran to the left, got on a bike, but the bikes were stuck. I had to pry them loose by hand; people were looking at me, thinking I was robbing something, it was unbelievable. I could hear them leaving, and I thought, "No, it's over." And then suddenly, I managed to free a bike, activated it, and just as I got it going, I saw them turning left, towards me. They were driving slowly, so I pretended not to notice like I didn't know what was happening, because they hadn't seen me. Then they headed towards Avenue Montaigne, in the direction of the Champs-Élysées. I tried to follow them on the bike, but they were going too fast, really fast. At some point, I lost sight of them. Then I thought, "No way, where are they?" And then I saw them quietly getting out. They had gotten out quickly to stay discreet. I saw them walking together, passing right by me. I was pretending to be a tourist. At that moment, I thought, "Is this crazy or not?" I wasn't sure if it was really crazy or not, but in my mind, it was content. At one point, they took a photo at the Eiffel Tower. I wanted to record a video, but they spotted me. So, they asked a French security guard to stay next to me to watch me. He stayed there for five minutes, then left, thinking I hadn't noticed.

Then, I took a long ride on my bike. They were heading towards the Pont de l'Alma, going down to the banks. I took a long ride on my bike, saw them from a distance, and watched them go down. I parked my bike, got down to see if they were taking a walk. I hid, sat on the ground, took out my phone, the video is on Instagram. I'll send it to you. At that time, I had 3,000 followers on Instagram, and 100,000 on TikTok. I took out my phone, zoomed in, made a slightly blurry video with the iPhone, you know, but you can see them holding hands. I hid because they would have seen me; their managers were watching, but there was no one around for about a minute and a half.

Taehyung and Jennie in Paris walking hand in hand in the City of Love 😭 this is def them!! They're so much in LOVE🥹🫶🏻 TAENNIEEE MY HEART🩷 pic.twitter.com/9Ph708ukjJ

— sleeping (@hityouwidthatd4) May 17, 2023

I called my friend, who is a fan of them, and said, "Go ahead, walk by them, and confirm if it's really them, please." She walked by and screamed, saying that it was definitely them, holding hands, etc. Fine, I didn't post the video right away. I kept it for myself and waited three days until they left. Because if you post it right away, people will show up.

Three days later, maybe there was some Korean press interested in it. I told them, "No, I'm going to post this on my social networks." I wasn't going to give it to them, etc. I posted it on TikTok. It was in 2023, in the middle of the year, like May. I posted the video on TikTok at noon. I posted it, and for an hour, it got 500 views. I thought, "Oh yeah, it's dead, it's not going to work." I thought about deleting it, but I kept it. I said to myself, "It's okay, I made a video."

I went out for a walk, and when I came back, in an hour and a half, it had 600 shares, 50,000 views, and every two minutes, it kept going up: 55,000, 60,000. The comments were like, "No, that's not possible." People were shocked, especially the fans from Asia, because they were international stars. In five or six hours, the video had 100,000, then 200,000 views. I started getting messages on Instagram every two seconds, it wouldn't stop. It was like I was Cristiano Ronaldo! Some people were insulting me, others were saying, "Finally, the truth is out." I didn't understand the importance of this couple because I didn't follow them. For me, it was just a video of celebrities. I hid because I knew they didn't want to be filmed up close. But for me, it was like filming an actor coming out of a restaurant.

That was my first truly viral video, internationally. It wasn't American, it wasn't French, but content of an international star.