Songfacts®:

• "Less Than a Lover" is a breezy summer pop song where Jennie embraces a relationship with no labels and no pressure. Instead of chasing commitment, she celebrates the sweet spot between friendship and romance, where two people can simply enjoy each other's company without immediately having to define it.
• Some online fans speculated that the song might reference Jennie's rumored relationship with V of BTS, but there is no evidence to support that theory, and Jennie hasn't indicated that her personal life inspired the track.
• Jennie co-wrote the song with Bibi Bourelly, Deb Never (credited under her legal name, Deborah Jung), Jelli Dorman, and producers Cashmere Cat and Tyler Spry. Spry also played guitar, bass, percussion, synthesizer and Wurlitzer piano, while contributing programming and background vocals, making him something of a musical Swiss Army knife on the session.
  
  Discussing the track, Jennie kept its inspiration simple: "It's a song I wrote thinking about summer."
• Two of Jennie's collaborators were already familiar faces to the K-Pop star. Bibi Bourelly and Jelli Dorman both worked extensively on Jennie's 2025 debut solo album, Ruby. Bourelly co-wrote six songs, including "Zen"and "Seoul City," while Dorman contributed to eight tracks, among them "Mantra" and "Love Hangover" featuring Dominic Fike.
  
  For Tyler Spry, Deb Never and Cashmere Cat, "Less Than a Lover" was their first collaboration with Jennie. Spry had already established himself as a sought-after producer in K-pop thanks to his work on BTS' "Swim" from the Arirang album.
• Jennie debuted "Less Than a Lover" live before its release during her headlining set at the Governors Ball Music Festival in New York City on June 7, 2026. She continued performing it at Denmark's Roskilde Festival (July 3), Poland's Open'er Festival (July 4), and Spain's Mad Cool Festival (July 9), building fan anticipation before releasing it on July 24, 2026.
• Jennie directed the accompanying music video, writing and starring in the visual alongside Nah Kai. Shot in Girona, Spain, the video follows a sun-soaked summer romance through a series of intimate moments where the couple repeatedly stop just short of sharing a kiss. The restraint mirrors the song's message: this relationship deliberately remains "less than a lover."
  
  At the beginning of the video, Jennie introduces it as "a story about a girl who wants to avoid love, wants to avoid responsibilities... but also knows what she wants," establishing the emotional conflict at its center. The closing "to be continued" card hints that the story still has another chapter to tell.
  
  Nah Kai, who appears opposite Jennie, is a Taiwan-born, Seoul-based fashion model. Before "Less Than a Lover," he was best known to K-pop fans for appearing in SEVENTEEN duo DxS's music video for "Blue."