Kaylee Hottle, the deaf actress who played Jia in the recent ‘Godzilla’ and ‘Kong’ films, has died at 18 after a single-vehicle car crash in Ijamsville, Maryland, in the early hours of Tuesday, 21 July 2026.
Her father, Joshua Hottle, confirmed the news in a nearly 23-minute Facebook livestream, as reported by TMZ, explaining in American Sign Language that he had flown from Texas to claim his daughter’s body.
Kaylee and her father were both deaf, part of a multi-generational deaf family from Atlanta, Georgia.
How Kaylee Hottle died in the Maryland crash
The crash happened in the early hours of Tuesday, 21 July 2026, in Ijamsville, Maryland.
Three people were in the vehicle, the driver and two passengers. Police believe excessive speed played a part, and the driver was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
One passenger declined medical treatment at the scene. Kaylee was the other passenger, and her heart stopped on the way to hospital.
She was 18 years old, an actress who had spent nearly half her life in front of a camera and on set.
Who Kaylee Hottle was before the Godzilla films
Kaylee grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, in a family where sign language was the first language across generations. She started acting in commercials at nine, including a public service advert for Glide, a sign-language video app, long before Hollywood came calling.
Her breakthrough arrived in 2021 with Godzilla vs. Kong, where she played Jia, a deaf orphaned girl bonded to Kong through sign language, alongside Rebecca Hall’s Dr Ilene Andrews.
She reprised the role in the 2024 sequel Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.
Beyond the monster universe, Kaylee popped up in the Magnum P.I. reboot, playing a character called Joon in a season four episode. For a young deaf actress, roles written with her in mind were rare, and she carved out a space that had barely existed before.
How Hollywood is remembering Kaylee Hottle
Her castmate Rebecca Hall led the tributes, remembering the young co-star she had worked with across two films. On Instagram, Hall wrote:
“Devastated to hear this news. My heart goes out to your family. You will be missed Kaylee.”
Actress Millie Bobby Brown added her own message of grief, posting to her Instagram Story:
“I’m so devastated to hear this. You will be deeply missed Kaylee.”
Tributes from the deaf community and film world have kept coming since Joshua Hottle’s livestream, honouring an actress who made deaf characters visible to a global audience. Any funeral or memorial details rest with a family still grieving a daughter taken at 18.
