On the verge of the latest hack-n-slash video game by PlatinumGames releasing exclusively on Nintendo Switch, Bayonetta 3, more and more information is coming out about the change in the titular character’s voice actor.
Back on Oct. 15, voice actor Hellena Taylor released a series of videos calling on fans to boycott the forthcoming title. Taylor, who was later replaced with veteran voice actor Jennifer Hale, claimed Platinum only offered her $4,000 for reprising the role, which was why she turned it down.
However, a subsequent piece of investigative journalism offered a counter-narrative that Taylor was actually offered $3,000-$4,000 for five four-hour sessions, making the grand total at least $15,000.
So what does Taylor have to say about all of this? She took to Twitter to make a post in apparent response to the report in Bloomberg, saying in part she feels “the need to defend myself and my reputation in the industry” following accusations she has faced of being called “a liar and a gold digger.”
In subsequent replies to the post, Taylor is now appearing to backtrack on her initial claim that she was only offered a grand total of $4,000 for the Bayonetta 3 gig.
“That [first] offer was 10,000 dollars total […] I was then offered an extra [$]5,000,” Taylor explained, saying that the developers only offered her the extra five grand after she personally wrote in Japanese to the game’s executive director, Hideki Kamiya, for more money.
Taylor added that “They then offered me a flat fee to voice some lines for 4,000 dollars.”
According to Jason Schreier, the original author of the Bloomberg expose, Taylor’s Twitter thread served as an admission of the accuracy of his “reporting that she was offered at least $15,000 and that the final offer was for a cameo, despite the claims in a video that went viral last week.”
For better or for worse, Bayonetta 3 comes to Nintendo Switch on Oct. 28.