She Lied to Gamers, Now Responds to Accusations and Calls Gamedevs Greedy
Voice actress Hellena Taylor, known for the first two installments of the Bayonetta series, has responded to reports accusing her of misrepresenting the salary she was to be offered for her performance in the third installment of the series.
Recently there has been a lot of buzz about the scandal related to the change of the lead voice actress in the English version of Bayonetta 3. Hellena Taylor, known from the previous two parts, resigned from the role because, as she put it, she was offered a "derogatory low" salary. Then it turned out that the actress had slightly misrepresented the truth. Now Taylor has spoken out again on the matter, responding to the allegations of lying.
- Hellena Taylor admitted that in truth she was offered $15,000. She previously claimed that she was offered only $4,000.
- The actress disputes some of the details from earlier reports by journalist Jason Schreier from Bloomberg news service regarding the number of sessions, but admits that the the amount he reported was true.
- She denies, however, Schreier's other information, according to which she was said to have demanded a six-figure salary (although she cites a figure of $250,000, which Schreier did not mention).
- Taylor reiterated her outrage at the low proposal, stressing that Bayonetta is a franchise that has earned more than $450 million.
- This amount, however, seems untrue. We suspect journalist Imran Khan provides an explanation to this, who believes that the actress obtained this amount by taking the estimated sales of games in the series from Vgchartz and multiplying them by $60. This is obviously a flawed method. Vgchartz often has highly inaccurate data, and besides, a large part of the series' sales are much cheaper, discounted copies. For example, the first part of the series currently costs around $20 on Steam.
- Taylor continues to call for a boycott of the the latest installment of the series, calling its creators "greedy and corrupt."
The strangest thing about the whole situation is that the even the amount of $15,000 is cheap for the lead role in a high-budget game. So there was no good reason to bend the truth. In doing so, Hellena Taylor harmed herself and her cause. On top of that, she drew hate on Jennifer Hale, who replaced her in the role. The situation got so bad at one point that the games' developers, the people at PlatinumGames, had to issue a statement, in which they asked players to refrain from attacks on both actresses.
Finally, let's recall that Bayonetta 3 is heading exclusively for Nintendo Switch. The game will be released on October 28, this year.
