Kaylee Hottle, the deaf actress known for her role in Godzilla vs. Kong, died in a tragic car accident.
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Joshua Hottle, Kaylee’s father, first broke the news in a tearful Facebook livestream before sharing the tragedy with TMZ.
He explained in ASL that the fatal crash occurred in Maryland earlier that morning (July 21). Joshua was in Texas when he received a call from authorities about the collision, followed by another call informing him that his daughter’s heart had stopped en route to the hospital.
He told the outlet he was traveling to Maryland to retrieve his daughter’s body.
“I am taking a flight that I never would like to take,” he captioned the heartbreaking post.
According to Baltimore’s WBAL-TV and the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office, the single-vehicle accident took place just before 3 a.m. in Ijamsville, Maryland. A preliminary investigation suggests Hottle was a passenger in a Honda Accord driven by a 19-year-old Maryland man, possibly at excessive speeds. The vehicle left the road and struck a culvert. The driver sustained non-life-threatening injuries, another passenger was unharmed, and Hottle was pronounced dead after being transported to a hospital.
Kaylee Hottle Began Her Acting Career at Age 9
Born in Atlanta and raised in Austin, Kaylee Hottle grew up in a multi-generational deaf family and attended the Texas School for the Deaf. She began her career in commercials at just 9 years old, including a PSA for Glide, a live video messaging app widely used by the deaf and hard-of-hearing community.
In 2021, Kaylee portrayed Jia in Godzilla vs. Kong, playing a young girl living on Skull Island who communicates with King Kong through sign language alongside Rebecca Hall’s character, Dr. Ilene Andrews. She went on to reprise the role in the 2024 sequel, Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire.
Per IMDb, Kaylee also appeared in the Magnum P.I. reboot series, playing a character named Joon in a season 4 episode.
Meanwhile, fans are mourning the young actress’s sudden death in a Reddit thread.
“Damn, that is tragically young. She was a standout in both Godzilla x Kong films, so this is super sad to see,” one fan wrote. “Car accident. She was a bright spot. As a father, I’m feeling pain for the parents. Damn. Just damn,” a second fan offered.
“That’s terrible! So young! My fullest condolences to her family,” a third fan wrote.
Kaylee Hottle was 18.