Hirai Momo (平井 もも), better known by stage name Momo, is the main dancer, sub-vocalist and sub-rapper of the South-Korean girl group TWICE. She is nicknamed the “dance machine” due to her body movements and physical fitness.

Momo started dancing when she was 3 years old influenced by Amuro Namie to become a singer because and later a K-pop artist after watching Rain and Lee Hyori. She was scouted by JYP Entertainment after they saw a dance video of her and her older sister, Hana. Both of them auditioned for JYP, but only Momo made it. Sana and Momo were both accepted into JYP at the same time, as a result, people mistook them to be twins.

Pre-debut with TWICE, Momo appeared in GOT7’s “Stop Stop It” MV, Junho’s “Feel” Japanese ver. MV, miss A’s “Only You” MV, and Wooyoung’s “Rose” (Japanese) MV. Momo also appeared in Heechul’s and Min Kyung Hoon’s “Sweet Dream” MV, the former artist which she later started dating.

On October 2015, Momo debuted as a member of TWICE with their first EP, The Story Begins with title track “Like Ooh-Ahh”. Interestingly, the music video became the first debut K-pop group MV to hit 100 million views.

She is one of the most popular non-Korean K-pop star. The Chosun Ilbo, the oldest daily leading newspaper in South Korea, credited her along with other Japanese members with improving relations between South Korea and Japan:

The three girls' popularity in Korea and Japan is even supposed to have played a role in softening historic enmity between the two countries.