Hellena Taylor, the character of Bayonetta’s voice actor, shared that she did not reprise the role in Bayonetta 3 as she was only offered $4000. As such, she has asked her fans to donate to charity instead and to boycott Bayonetta 3.
On Twitter, Taylor shared a few videos of her speaking her side of the story right after the announcement. She said that Jennifer Hale would replace her in Bayonetta 3. She had been the voice actor of the franchise’s lead character, Bayonetta, since the first game, and she could not stay silent after how she was being treated.
Friends, Worldlings, Bayonutters. Hear ye!#PlatinumGames #Nintendo #Bayonetta #Bayonetta3 #Bayonutters #Boycott #NintendoEurope #NintendoAmerica #NintendoJapan pic.twitter.com/h9lwiX2bBt
— Hellena Taylor (@hellenataylor) October 15, 2022
Taylor said,
“The Bayonetta franchise made an approximated $450 million, and that’s not including merchandise. As an actor, I trained for a total of seven and a half years – three years at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art Lambda with voice coach Barbara Berkery, and four and a half years with the legendary Larry Moss in Los Angeles. And what did they think this was worth? What did they offer to pay me? The final offer to do the whole game as a buyout, flat rate, was $4000 USD.”
“This is an insult to me. The amount of time I took to work on my talent, and everything that I have given to this game and to the fans. I am asking the fans to boycott this game and instead spend the money that you would have spent on this game donating to charity. I did not want the world. I did not ask for too much. I was just asking for a decent, dignified, living wage. What they did was legal, but it was immoral.”
She continued to give her opinion to share that she is “more a lover than a fighter,” so that most may not see her as Bayonetta in real life. However, now she realizes she is more like the character than she knew.
Bayonetta 3 closes in on its long-awaited release date of October 28. Bayonetta is a shape-shifting witch who can summon demons in the action-adventure hack-n-slash game. The games of this franchise are being released by Sega and developed by Platinum Games partnered with publisher Nintendo. for the sequel Bayonetta 2 in 2014. Ms. Taylor was also credited as Bayonetta’s voice actor in the fighting game appearances of Bayonetta, such as Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.
The fanbase was negatively stoked to hear Taylor was missing from Bayonetta 3, which has raised some eyebrows. With the offer she received, she was offended as she was also as prominent as Jennifer Hale. The latter is one of the more prominent voice-acting talents working today, with notable credits like Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid, and Halo 5: Guardians. Taylor said that even if Hale replaces her with someone else, she wishes her all the best but said, “She has no right to say she is Bayonetta.“
In the end Ms, Taylor concluded,
“They now have a new girl voicing her over, and I love actors, and I wish her all the joy in the world and all the jobs, but she has no right to say she is Bayonetta. She has no right to sign merchandise as Bayonetta. Any more than I have the right to sign as Eva Green, even though I was her parrot in Golden Compass. That portrayal is hers and hers alone. They’ll probably try to do a spin-off with Jeanne, do not buy that either.”
The director Hideki Kamiya has responded to these allegations with a short tweet, saying, “Sad and deplorable about the attitude of untruth. That’s all I can tell now. By the way, BEWARE OF MY RULES.”
Following this event, PlatinumGames became increasingly under fire from the fanbase, which led to the deactivation or deletion of Hideki Kamiya’s Twitter account. On October 15, 2022, Mr. Kamiya’s Twitter account was flagged for suspicious activity, most likely because of blocking many people in this backlash that he has been facing.