Kaylee Hottle, Jia From Godzilla Vs. Kong Movies, Dead At 18

In an absolutely heartbreaking turn of events, Kaylee Hottle — the young Deaf actor who played Jia in the MonsterVerse movies "Godzilla vs. Kong" and "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" — has died at the age of 18. Announcing the devastating news on a Facebook livestream, Hottle's father, Joshua Hottle, explained in American Sign Language (ASL) that she was killed in a car accident this morning in Maryland, adding that he will have to fly there from Texas to collect her body.

Born to an all-deaf family, Kaylee Hottle attended the Texas School for the Deaf, and she came from four generations of Deaf relatives on her father's side (with her mother also being Deaf). In 2017, she appeared in an ad for the video relay service Convo, itself "a deaf-owned, globally run platform designed for that reality" (per its official website).

"I had a connection with Convo. They asked me to be in a commercial one day, and so I did that commercial," she explained to the Houston Chronicle in 2024. She attributed this to her being cast in the gloriously silly monster romp that is 2021's "Godzilla vs. Kong" as Jia, a young, deaf orphaned member of the Iwi tribe that inhabited Kong's home territory of Skull Island. Jia had a special connection with Kong and was adopted by Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall), a scientist who studies Kong for Monarch (a fictional organization in the MonsterVerse that has since become the focus of its own spin-off TV series: "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters"). Hottle and Hall later reprised their roles for the equally ludicrous (in a good way) 2024 sequel "The New Empire."

Rebecca Hall and Alexander Skarsgård, who co-starred in "Godzilla vs. Kong" as the Monarch scientist Nathan Lind, both learned ASL in order to better communicate with Kaylee Hottle while working on the film. "It's her first movie," Skarsgård told Junkee in 2021. "It's fascinating how comfortable she is in front of the camera and how quickly she takes notes from the director Adam [Wingard]. He'll explain something, and she'll be like, 'Got it, got it,' then she'll just do it, and everyone's like, 'The f*** ... how did she?'"

"She's so professional [...] there's so much going on on her face, her expression and the subtleties of that is fascinating to watch," he added.

Beyond the MonsterVerse, Hottle appeared on the "Magnum P.I." reboot series and "10 Deaf Children: One Powerful Message," a 2016 video urging "all Americans to stand with the Deaf community in their ongoing fight for equality." When Young Entertainment asked her what advice she would offer other hearing impaired individuals hoping to pursue an acting career in film and television in 2024, Hottle replied, "It takes a lot of patience to be in movies. Sometimes, you have to go through some hard times, but you have to accept it, and in time, the end result will be great."

Our hearts go out to Kaylee Hottle's loved ones as they grieve this terrible loss.