Lee HeeJae (이희재) is born the 23rd October 1996 (that makes her a Scorpio for you astrology nerds). She is an idol, a dancer, a prolific YouTube panelist and a model. Her father is a photographer so she was used since childhood to be in front of cameras. She is closed to her mother and has a younger sister, Lee Heejin.
In 2016, her idol profile listed her as 166cm (5'5") and 47kg (104 lbs). A more recent 2020 model profile post on her IG listed her as 168cm (5'6") and 48kg (106 lbs).
As a dancer, she goes sometimes by the pseudonyms Zeze (as listed on Instagram) and Jeje (this second one, found on multiple video and sites, seems to be the expected phonetic pronouciation of the first one). She is also known as Sera (세라) in XOX.
As a child, she already loved dancing and won numerous children talent contests. She preferred exploring rather than play at home, and had a yearly pass for Everland where she went regularly spending the whole day there.
Knowing her love for dance, her family recommended that she'd go to an art shool and she was admited and graduated from Hanlim Arts High School where she studied practical dance (waacking, kpop, jazz) among other things. Hanlim is a very famous school with alumnis currently performing in major idol groups including Twice, F(x), RedVelvet, Shinee, Got7, BtoB... Because it was far from her parent's house, she had to move when she was 15. She actually mentioned that getting admitted in Hanlim was her best memory. She also went to college where she was a Dance major.
She debuted as an idol the 4th October 2016 as the maknae (19 y.o.), and, officially, dancer and sub-vocal of the 4-members group Sixth Sense (식스센스). She also did rapping on some songs. The group was created by a small company called UP Entertainment (renamed AN-J Entertainment and now closed) in 2015 with a predebut single, but it sustained a major line up change for its debut single the following year with departure, soon-to-debut group ST-Age being merged in... One member left soon after debut and was replaced and the group became know as Queendom (퀸덤) from mid-2017 onward. They released 3 songs with HeeJae: "Fell Me", "Dont' Go" and "Fly High". With chaotic management and without much financial backup or exposure, the group never got to be on a music show but attended a few music festivals and events where they performed their songs as well as covered songs from BlackPink, MissA, RedVelvet and others... They were also featured on the TV show 신인식당 and on an AfreecaTV BJ show. It was a lot of work but very little money so the group disbanded in late 2017 after a year of being active. They are still in good terms and catch up from time to time.
After this short career, she managed to increase her salary by becoming a member of dance cover group Aighty9 (에이티나인), for which she did both group dance covers and solo dance tutorials. They performed in dance contests, with at last one win. They also did paid events like consolation performance in the army (bringing dancers/singers to perform to maintain soldiers morale) and festivals. HeeJae also taught dancing in schools as part of this group.
At the same time, HeeJae also did, and still do, some modelling. Right know, you can catch up modelling for tourism ads with instagram account @totan_film, or for clothing ads, for example, on Instagram accounts @wusinsa, @musinsacom, @clubcocoa__official.
Starting 27th May 2019, HeeJae explored another face of entertainment by appearing on 퍼퓸라이퍼perfumelifer YouTube channel as a host for 24 short videos. This was the start of her Youtuber carrer. On the 1st July 2019, she became a recurring panelist on several popular YouTube reaction channels, first CLAB (and related), for the Korean market, and then Awesome World starting at the end of 2019, targeting the International market. She also served briefly in Q3-Q4 2019 as co-host for the short-lived shopping channel EnuriTV (에누리TV), as well as panelist on a few videos for the official channel of Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance (삼성화재 CH.).
She joined DMC Entertainment (dmcenm) at the end of 2019, another entertainment company that hosts dance-oriented performers and provides on-demand services for events. In this stable, HeeJae is a member of slightly sexy but not raunchy idol girl group XoX (which has released two original songs, Yellow and 흔들지마 -subtitled 'Don't wobble'-, both before HeeJae joined), and is a member of dance groups DMC Crew and X-COS (엑스코스). The later is a cosplay-themed dancing group, and both groups are featuring members from XoX. The performing members of XoX can vary from concert to concert. All these groups perform at festivals, in water park, and XoX also does "consolation performance" for soldiers (a concert to cheer up the soldiers during their two years of mandatory military service, often featuring mainly girl groups).
According to a YT video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG8FX2ewTkE), it seems that, although she still dances, she had grown somewhat tired of this activity. Still, she performs some choreography on TikTok for her own pleasure from time to time.
At the end of 2020, she started featuring in several minor TY channels, including one dedicated to video games, 피료한TV, and one dedicated to fishing, 미숙이낚시.
In December 2020, she opened her own Youtube channel, Hi, jaejae. heejae, where she posts her own content, sometime shot with her mother.
During her carreer as of 2020, HeeJae has received several awards and performed several accomplishments:
She and her team received the Hallyu Hip-Hop Culture Awards Dance Part - Team Competition Awards
She received a Prize in the broadcasting dance section of Myeongji University President Bae International Practical Competition
She and her team received the Grand Prize in the Group Exhibition - Street section of the International Congress of Practical Dance
She received a Gold Medal for the Franchise Day Incope KPop Cover Dance Competition
And as mentioned on the main page, her most viewed YouTube video has more than 5.8 millions of views!
The 11th November 2020, she was officially nominated for the "Most Beautiful Face 2020" contest organized every year by TC Candler and his group.