‘Bayonetta’ Creator Hideki Kamiya Reflects On Hellena Taylor Backlash, Blasts Critics Who Refuse To Admit They Were Wrong: “THAT’S SOME REAL COWARD SH*T”
In finally offering his thoughts on the now infamous debacle involving Bayonetta 3 and the protagonist’s former voice actor Hellena Taylor, series creator and former PlatinumGames boss Hideki Kamiya has admitted that far from the stoic feelings his silence at the time would have suggested, he was actually quite unhappy with how things went down.
As previously reported, the controversy in question kicked off in late 2022 when, during an October interview with Game Informer, Bayonetta 3 director Yusuke Miyata revealed that Taylor would no longer be voicing the titular heroine due to “various overlapping circumstances”.
Instead, he confirmed, the high-flying witch would be voiced in the franchise’s third entry by Jennifer Hale, a veteran voice actor whose extensive filmography includes such credits as Naomi Hunter in the Metal Gear Solid series and Mass Effect‘s female Commander Shepard.
After this casting change was made public, Taylor took to social media to accuse PlatinumGames, and Kamiya in particular, of insultingly offering her just $4,000 “to do the whole game”.
“Platinum had the cheek to say that I was busy,” she noted. “Well, I had nothing but time.”
In light of her supposed firing, Taylor called on fans to “boycott this game and instead spend the money that you would have spent on this game, donating it to charity.”
“I understand that boycotting this game is a personal choice, and there are those that won’t, and that’s fine,” she conceded. “But if you’re someone who cares about people, who cares about the world around you, who cares about who gets hurt with these financial decisions, then I urge you to boycott this game.”
Further, Taylor also took the opportunity to rally the support of fans, in doing so asking them to send a message to PlatinumGames by boycotting Bayonetta 3.
“They now have a new girl, voicing her over — and I love actors, I wish her all the joy in the world, I wish her all the jobs — but she has no right to say she is the voice of Bayonetta,” the actress decried. “I created that voice, 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 on the video game The Golden Compass; that portrayal is hers and hers alone.”
Following Taylor’s initial accusations, Kamiya would make his only public statement on the matter, writing via his personal Twitter account, “Sad and deplorable about the attitude of untruth. That’s what all I can tell now.” before warning those attempting to interact with him of his “RULES” regarding the on-sight-blocking of English-speaking users.
Shortly thereafter, a pair of insiders reached out to Bloomberg‘s Jason Schreier to inform him that rather than just $4,000, Taylor was actually offered “$3,000 to $4,000 for four hours in the studio”, or a total of roughly $15,000.
Not only that, but the $4,000 offer was not for ‘the entire game’ as Taylor claimed, but rather a simple cameo (likely one that had to do with Bayonetta 3‘s multiversal premise).
Caught between a rock and a hard place, Taylor would then attempt to rationalize her decision to publicly fudge the numbers – However, with the public’s trust in her absolutely shattered, the voice actress found little support, and as such not only saw her profile fade with fans, but given how she has not appeared in anything since, also the industry.
Fast forward to July 8th, 2025, when as part of his ongoing Hideki Replies To Your Comments! YouTube series, Kamiya finally offered a deeper reflection on the entire affair.
Asked directly for “his thoughts on what happened with Hellena Taylor and Bayonetta 3“, the series creator declared, per a translation provided by him and his team, “There’s something I really want to say about this. It’s not really about this specific issue… But what I felt when this whole thing happened.”
“Since I was directly involved, it really stuck with me. And since I was on Twitter (X) at the time… I got flooded with messages. Like, seriously flooded. I just called them ‘messages,’ but… They were hate posts—just tons of verbal abuse pouring in.
“So how do you all feel about that incident now that it’s over? What I was thinking at the time was…Well, I don’t know how it is in your country right now—but here in Japan, it’s kind of a social issue. Whenever something happens involving public figures, the media covers it, and then people on the sidelines just go crazy over it. Whenever I see those kinds of stories—magazines, newspapers, TV…I always think they’re only showing one side of the story. Like, ‘This person had some conflict with that person.’ And then you see a headline like, ‘This person did something terrible to that one!’ And people react like, ‘Unbelievable! That’s outrageous!’ But I think unless you also hear the other side, you can’t really understand or judge what actually happened.
“And honestly, even judging other people in the first place—is that really our place? Like, chatting over a meal with friends and going, ‘Did you hear about that thing?’ Then saying things like, ‘I think this side was right,’ or ‘No, I’m with the other one.’ That kind of conversation’s totally fine between friends. But now we’ve got social media where everyone can share their thoughts…And when people just take the visible parts and flat-out decide, ‘This guy’s the bad one!’ and start sending them hate— I think that’s totally messed up.
“We see gossip news all the time in Japan. Hmm…How can I put this…Even when I see that kind of news, I don’t instantly go, ‘What!? That’s unforgivable!’ or ‘Screw that guy!’ That’s just not me. Maybe I’m just a bit cynical, but… even when someone says, ‘He said something awful…’ I don’t immediately go, ‘That’s terrible! How dare he!’ First I go, ‘Oh really?’ And then I start thinking: ‘Why did he say that?’ or ‘What led up to that?’ or ‘What was going on behind the scenes?’ That’s the part I’m curious about first.”
“So when all this stuff happened to me, it just made me believe that even more. It was wild. My Twitter timeline was just flying by in real time—it was insane. Just scrolling nonstop. I kept blocking non-stop, though. But even my speed couldn’t keep up. So I was like, ‘What!? They’re coming in faster than I can block them!?’ WHAT!?
“Anyway, that’s not the point. People were saying whatever they wanted. Even famous people were jumping in and throwing comments at me. And then, once things calmed down, I went back and looked— and they had quietly deleted their tweets.
“Hey, apologize to me first before you do anything sneaky. THAT’S SOME REAL COWARD SH-T. You posted it publicly, on social media, right? So if you were wrong, you should publicly admit it. Say, ‘Hey, I messed up’—own it. At least that’s how I try to be. I may act like this, but I do have my own code. If I’m not wrong? Then no, I absolutely won’t apologize. No chance. But when I am wrong, I’ll own it properly.”
Drawing his thoughts to a close, Kamiya ultimately declared, “Man, that was SERIOUSLY LAME. I’m the kind of guy who really holds onto stuff like that. I’ll probably keep bringing it up forever.”
