{"id":776352,"date":"2026-07-21T18:55:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T18:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/776352\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T18:55:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T18:55:09","slug":"kaylee-hottle-dead-godzilla-vs-kong-actress-dies-at-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/776352\/","title":{"rendered":"Kaylee Hottle Dead: Godzilla Vs. Kong Actress Dies at 18"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tKaylee Hottle, a deaf actress who played the character of Jia in two Godzilla vs. Kong<\/a> franchise movies, has died. She was 18.<\/p>\n

\n\tTMZ was first to report <\/a>on Hottle\u2019s death in a car crash on Tuesday morning in Maryland, as confirmed by her father, Joshua Hottle. Coming from an all-deaf family, her dad also used American Sign Language via a post on Facebook <\/a>to convey his grief alongside the caption, \u201cI am taking a flight that I never would like to take.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Frederick County Sheriff\u2019s Office in Maryland in a statement said that at about 2:52 a.m., deputies and personnel from the Frederick County Division of Fire and Rescue Services responded to a fatal single-vehicle collision involving a 1995 Honda Accord in the town of Ijamsville, near Baltimore.<\/p>\n

\n\tA preliminary investigation revealed that a 19-year-old Frederick man traveled off the right side of the two-lane roadway and struck a culvert. \u201cExcessive speed is believed to be a contributing factor in the collision,\u201d the County Sheriff\u2019s Office added. The crash remains under investigation.<\/p>\n

\n\tHottle, who lived in Kyle, Texas, was one of two passengers in the car at the scene of the collision. She was transported to a trauma center, where she was pronounced dead. The other passenger did not need medical treatment at the scene. The driver was transported to a hospital with injuries that are not believed to be life-threatening. <\/p>\n

\n\tHottle made her big-screen debut in the 2021 original Godzilla vs. Kong movie at age 9 and then in the 2024 sequel Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. As Jia, a deaf, orphaned indigenous Iwi girl rescued on Skull Island by Kong, she\u2019s raised by Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall<\/a>), an anthropological linguist working for U.S. government monster research organization Monarch.<\/p>\n

\n\tHer character\u2019s ability to communicate with the giant ape via ASL created poignant moments in the movies.<\/p>\n

\n\tHottle had appeared in a 2017 commercial for the video relay service\u00a0app\u00a0Convo around Mother\u2019s Day, and the girl\u2019s ability to convey emotion using sign language convinced the producers of Godzilla vs. Kong to cast her.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI had a connection with Convo. They asked me to be in a commercial one day, and so I did that. And then the assistant director of [Kong: Skull Island] saw me and they thought I matched the character description of Jia,\u201d Hottle said using ASL for a March 2024 profile in the Houston Chronicle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe added about her acting experience on set: \u201cI would read the script, and [director] Adam [Wingard] would explain to me exactly what he wanted me to do. And I also had my parents\u2019 support and translation of the script, and I just brought it to life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Texas School for the Deaf, where Hottle was educated, paid tribute to her on Facebook<\/a>: \u201cOur hearts are with Kaylee\u2019s family, friends, classmates and everyone who knew and loved her during this incredibly difficult time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a March 2021 profile for the Australian pop culture Junkee<\/a> website, Alexander Skarsgard<\/a> praised Hottle for being so surprisingly assured onscreen and on set. \u201cIt\u2019s her first movie. It\u2019s fascinating how comfortable she is in front of the camera and how quickly she takes notes from the director,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019ll explain something and she\u2019ll be like, \u2018Got it, got it,\u2019 then she\u2019ll just do it and everyone\u2019s like, \u2018The fuck \u2026 how did she?\u2019 She\u2019s so professional and just incredibly \u2026 There\u2019s so much going on on her face, her expression, and the subtleties of that is fascinating to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tJuly 21, 10:15 am. Updated with a statement from the Frederick County Sheriff\u2019s Office in Maryland with details on the fatal car crash. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kaylee Hottle, a deaf actress who played the character of Jia in two Godzilla vs. Kong franchise movies,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[23974,88,330981,10756],"class_list":["post-776352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-alexander-skarsgard","tag-entertainment","tag-godzilla-vs-kong","tag-obituaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}