Kaylee Hottle Dead at 18: Godzilla vs. Kong Star Killed in Maryland Car Accident
Kaylee Hottle, the deaf actress who played Jia in Godzilla vs. Kong and its 2024 sequel, has died in a car accident in Maryland. She was 18. Her father, Joshua Hottle, confirmed the news Tuesday, July 21, saying he was notified by authorities while in Texas and that her heart stopped on the way to the hospital. Her school has asked the public not to speculate about the crash.
Joshua Hottle confirmed his daughter’s death to TMZ, then shared the news in a 23-minute Facebook livestream delivered entirely in American Sign Language. The caption read: “I am taking a flight that I never would like to take.”
He was flying from Texas to Maryland to identify his daughter’s body. Officials had called to tell him Kaylee was critically injured in a crash, then called again to say her heart had stopped before she reached the hospital.
🕊️ “Godzilla vs. Kong” star Kaylee Hottle has died at 18.
What we know: https://t.co/BH9doYU7V2 pic.twitter.com/znZtlC0A8A
— TMZ (@TMZ) July 21, 2026
The school’s request
Kaylee was a senior at Texas School for the Deaf in Austin. The school confirmed her death in a statement, placing the accident in Frederick, Maryland, and asked the public to respect her family’s privacy and avoid speculating about the circumstances. Nothing further about the crash has been confirmed, and this story is still developing.
She loved that school. In a 2024 interview with Chron, she talked about having deaf teachers and being surrounded by people who could sign with her.
The girl who talked to Kong
Kaylee was born into a family with four generations of deaf relatives on her father’s side. She started acting at nine, in a commercial for Glide, a video messaging app popular in the deaf community. Then came the role that made her famous: Jia, the orphaned Iwi girl who becomes Kong’s only human confidant, communicating with him through sign language in 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong.
She reprised the role in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, and earned a Saturn Award nomination for Best Performance by a Younger Actor. In an interview with Digital Spy, she said she hoped deaf viewers would see Jia and think “she is as amazing as I think she is.”
Her co-stars saw it too. Alexander Skarsgard and Rebecca Hall praised her professionalism and expressiveness on set back in 2021, marveling at how quickly she absorbed direction.
She was 18, from Atlanta, one film into what should have been a long career.
Kaylee was one of the most visible deaf actors in Hollywood, and the Godzilla films have a massive following among Filipino audiences. Her loss lands hard in both the deaf community and the MonsterVerse fandom worldwide.
