‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ actress Kaylee Hottle dies in Maryland crash at 18

Kaylee Hottle, the deaf actress who won over “Godzilla vs. Kong” audiences as the sign-language-fluent Jia, died early Tuesday in a car crash in Frederick, Maryland, according to her father and her Texas high school.

Ms. Hottle’s father, Joshua Hottle, told TMZ that officials informed him his daughter’s heart stopped on the way to the hospital after the crash. Mr. Hottle, who is also deaf, broke the news to followers in a 23-minute American Sign Language livestream recorded in Texas, saying he had to fly to Maryland to claim her body.

“I am taking a flight that I never would like to take,” he signed, according to Forbes.

The Texas School for the Deaf in Austin, where Ms. Hottle was a senior, confirmed her death in a Facebook statement mourning the loss of “one of our TSD seniors, Kaylee Hottle,” who died in the wreck, according to CBR. The school asked the public to respect the family’s privacy while details of the crash remain limited.

Born in Atlanta and raised in Austin, Texas, Ms. Hottle came from a multigenerational deaf family and got her start in commercials, including a 2016 PSA for the video messaging app Glide. A 2017 ad she filmed for the video relay service Convo caught the attention of an assistant director on “Kong: Skull Island,” which led to her casting as Jia in “Godzilla vs. Kong” in 2021. Jia is an orphan living on Skull Island who communicates with Kong through sign language and is taken in by Rebecca Hall’s character, Dr. Ilene Andrews. Ms. Hottle reprised the role in 2024’s “Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire,” a performance that earned her a Saturn Award nomination for best younger performer, according to Bloody Disgusting. She also appeared in the “Magnum P.I.” reboot, playing a character named Joon.