‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ Star Kaylee Hottle Dead at 18 After Car Crash
A Godzilla-sized hole has been left in fans’ hearts.
Kaylee Hottle, who starred in the Godzilla franchise, died following a car accident in Maryland on July 21, the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office confirmed. The Texas-based actress was 18 years old.
Kaylee’s parents Joshua Hottle and Ketsi Hottle also shared the news of her death in videos in American Sign Language, with him writing he was “taking a flight that I never would like to take.”
He also posted a throwback video of Kaylee signing the lyrics to the Cochren & Co. song “One Day.”
“She sang the song beautifully!” he captioned the video. “We all will miss her dearly.”
In addition, Ketsi wrote alongside her own video, “Privilege to be your mom, Kaylee Hottle.”
Kaylee appeared in both 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong as well as the 2024 sequel Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire. To learn more about the teen and her career, read on.
Who Was Kaylee Hottle?
Kaylee was an actress who famously played Jia in both Godzilla vs. Kong and Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire.
“After I watched the movie, I thought, ‘Wow, this is going to make such a big impact,'” she said through an ASL interpreter on WABC-TV in 2024. “And I was so excited. She’s a young deaf girl, just like many others out there. And this journey that she’s going on is just going to be so amazing.”
And Kaylee, whom the outlet noted came from an all-deaf family spanning four generations, reflected on the importance of representation.
“Representation means to me, it shows where I come from and who I represent and what I’m representing for,” she continued. “Jia in the movie, she represents bravery. And I represent the Deaf community. And I also represent Asian Americans as well. So we have everything we need. And so I truly care so much about representation.”
Beyond her work onscreen and frequent appearances at conventions, Kaylee was a senior and student athlete at the Texas School for the Deaf, where she competed in basketball, swimming as well as track and field. (She was even named a Student-Athlete of the Month during the 2024-2025 season).
“Kaylee was an amazing person,” Japan’s Legends, a talent agency for stars of kaiju genre movies and TV shows that Kaylee often tagged on social media, wrote in a July 21 Facebook tribute. “Beyond her acting, she was an amazing athlete and an outstanding academic. She had so much potential and could have been anything she set her mind to. The world is a much sadder place without her.”
Amy Sussman/FilmMagic
How Did Kaylee Hottle Die?
Kaylee died following a car accident in Ijamsville, Maryland, on July 21. According to a press release from the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office, deputies as well as fire and rescue personnel responded at around 2:52 a.m. to a fatal single-vehicle collision.
“The preliminary investigation revealed that a 1995 Honda Accord, operated by a 19-year-old Frederick man, traveled off the right side of the two-lane roadway and struck a culvert,” the release continued. “Excessive speed is believed to be a contributing factor in the collision.”
In addition to the driver—who the release noted was taken to a local hospital for “injuries that are not believed to be life-threatening”—there were two passengers in the car.
“One passenger declined medical treatment at the scene,” the release added. “The second passenger was identified as Kaylee Hottle, 18, of Kyle, TX. Hottle was transported from the scene to an area trauma center, where she was later pronounced deceased.”
The official cause of Kaylee’s death has yet to be revealed. The Sheriff’s Office noted the investigation into the crash remains ongoing.
Did Kaylee Hottle Appear in Any Other Movies or TV Shows?
Not only was 2021 the year Kaylee made her film debut in Godzilla vs. Kong, but it was also the year she appeared in an episode of Magnum P.I., per her IMDb.
“I think I’m gonna see where acting is taking me,” she said through an ASL interpreter in 2024 to the Houston Chronicle, which noted she also starred in several commercials. “I’d like to see more Deaf young actresses get motivated when they see me on screen and hopefully they’ll have a chance in Hollywood as well. But I just hope that they’ll be inspired, especially deaf people, to be inspired to want to be an actor or actress when they see me on screen.”
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