The original Bayonetta 3 voice actor Hellena Taylor has responded to the controversy surrounding her pay, adding further clarity to her initial claims that she was offered $4,000 for the role.
Taylor previously posted a series of videos in which she outlined the financial reasons behind why she wasn’t returning as Bayonetta for the third installment in the series, saying that she was provided with an “insulting offer.” However, Taylor didn’t reveal what this initial offer was, only noting that she was ultimately offered $4,000 by developer Platinum Games for the role.
Hellena Taylor responds to Bayonetta controversy via Twitter
Taylor, who voiced the title character in the first two Bayonetta games, took to Twitter to provide more details regarding her negotiations with developer Platinum Games. According to her new message, Platinum initially offered her $10,000, before she wrote to director Hideki Kamiya, who then offered her a further $5,000, increasing the total offer to $15,000.
Taylor claimed that she declined this offer, with Platinum then following up 11 months later with an offer of a $4,000 flat fee to “voice some lines,” which she refused. Taylor notes that Bayonetta is “450 million dollar franchise,” though it’s unclear where she retrieved this data from.
Taylor’s initial videos outlining her issues with Platinum garnered her a lot of sympathy from viewers, and resulted in the game’s new voice actor Jennifer Hale receiving an unfortunate amount of backlash even though she was not involved in the dispute. Hale went on to share tweets from Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier, whose report on the issue included him noting how he had seen evidence of Taylor being offered “at least $15,000” for her role in the game. These claims have now been confirmed by Taylor.
Taylor not mentioning that Platinum offered her $15,000 before she declined to work on the game, only referring to that amount as “insulting,” is an omission that significantly changes the complexion of the story. While Taylor may believe that the claimed full total she was offered still undervalues her work, that is over three times the $4,000 amount she had initially mentioned, and as such adds further context that was previously missing from a messy situation.
