Kaylee Hottle, the deaf actress who played Jia in the MonsterVerse films Godzilla vs. Kong and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, has died at the age of 18. She was killed in a car accident on Tuesday morning in Frederick, Maryland, with her father announcing the news via American Sign Language in a Facebook livestream while travelling to Texas to claim her body.

Hottle, who was from Atlanta, Georgia, and came from a multi-generational deaf family, was a senior at the Texas School for the Deaf, which paid tribute to her in an Instagram post. She had appeared in commercials supporting deaf children, including a 2017 advert for video relay service Convo, before being cast as Jia, one of the last members of the Iwi tribe who is adopted by Dr Ilene Andrews and bonds with Kong through sign language. Hottle credited the Convo connection with helping the film's assistant director spot her for the role, which she went on to reprise in the 2024 sequel.