Entertainment
‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ Star Kaylee Hottle Dead at 18
11:12 AM PT — TMZ has obtained dispatch audio of the car crash.
9:22 AM PT — Authorities say Kaylee Hottle was riding in a 1995 Honda Accord when the driver veered off a Maryland road and slammed into a roadside ditch early Tuesday.
Kaylee Hottle — a deaf actress best known for playing Jia in two ‘Godzilla’ films — is dead.
Her father, Joshua Hottle, tells TMZ … his daughter was killed in a car accident early Tuesday morning in Maryland.
Joshua also shared the tragic news in a nearly 23-minute-long social live stream … explaining in ASL that he had to fly from Texas to claim her body.
Joshua says he learned Kaylee was involved in a serious car accident … and officials called him shortly after this initial shock to inform him her heart stopped on the way to the hospital.
Kaylee — an Atlanta, Georgia native — comes from a multi-generational deaf family. She got her start in commercials … notably a PSA for the live video messaging app Glide, which is used by many members of the deaf and hard-of-hearing community, when she was just 9 years old.
In 2021, Kaylee played Jia in “Godzilla vs. Kong” … a teenager who communicates with King Kong via sign language and lives on Skull Island with Rebecca Hall‘s character Dr. Ilene Andrews. She reprised the role in the 2024 movie “Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire.”
Kaylee is also credited with an appearance in the “Magnum P.I.” reboot series … playing a character named Joon in a season 4 episode.
She was just 18 years old.
RIP