Actress Kaylee Hottle, known for her role as Jia in the Godzilla franchise, has died at the age of 18 following a car accident.
According to the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office, a 1995 Honda Accord carrying three people left a two-lane road and crashed into a culvert at around 3 a.m. Hottle was one of two passengers in the vehicle. She was taken to a trauma center, where she was later pronounced dead. The driver suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was hospitalized, while the other passenger declined medical treatment. "Excessive speed is believed to have been a contributing factor in the crash," the sheriff’s office said.
Hottle’s father, Joshua Hottle, confirmed the news during a livestream in American Sign Language. He said he was informed that Kaylee suffered cardiac arrest while being transported to the hospital.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, to an American father and a Korean mother, Hottle was deaf, with deafness running in her father’s family for four generations. She was a senior at the Texas School for the Deaf in Austin, Texas.
Hottle made her acting debut in the 2021 film Godzilla vs. Kong , playing Jia, a deaf orphan from Skull Island’s Iwi tribe who communicates with Kong through sign language. She reprised the role in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, released in 2024, and was nominated for Best Performance by a Younger Performer in a Film at the 2024 Saturn Awards.
Her portrayal of Jia brought deaf representation to the MonsterVerse franchise.
