Bayonetta voice actor was actually offered £13,000 for role says new report-Michael Beckwith-Entertainment – Metro

Bayonetta 3 has always been shrouded in secrecy and now that’s well and truly backfired (pic: PlatinumGames)

The controversy surrounding Bayonetta 3 has only got messier, with sources refuting the original voice actor’s claims regarding payment.

Over the weekend, Hellena Taylor, the original voice actor for the titular star of PlatinumGames’ Bayonetta series, took to Twitter to explain why she hadn’t reprised the role for the upcoming three-quel.

The long and short of it is that she claims PlatinumGames only offered her $4,000 (roughly £3,500) for the job. Given it’s a pretty paltry sum for the lead character in a Nintendo funded series this led to calls from Taylor for a boycott and fervent conversations surrounding the poor treatment of voice actors in general.

However, a recent report may have shed new light on the situation and has only made things murkier, as it suggests that Taylor’s account isn’t wholly accurate. In fact, it’s claimed she was offered three to four times more than she claims.

It’s said that PlatinumGames wanted to bring Taylor in for at least five sessions, with each one paying $3,000 to $4,000 for four hours. At minimum, this would mean the total payment for Taylor’s reprisal would have been $15,000 (just over £13,300).

Taylor pushed for an undisclosed six figure sum, plus royalties (something that voice actors rarely ever get for video game voicework), but PlatinumGames turned that down and chose to audition for a new actor. The company did offer Taylor a cameo role in Bayonetta 3, but she declined.

This is according to Bloomberg, which obtained the information from two anonymous sources familiar with the negotiations, as well as documentation. VGC has also corroborated the report and claims to have also seen confirming documentation.

One source has claimed that the $15,000 offer was significantly more than what Taylor was paid for her work on Bayonetta 2.

Taylor has already refuted the suggestion she was offered more than $4,000, as well as the idea that she asked for six figures, calling it ‘categorically untrue’ and adding that PlatinumGames is ‘trying to save their ass and the game.’

‘I’d quite like to put this in the [rear-view] mirror and leave the whole bloody franchise behind. So I think I’ll just let my videos stand. I spoke the truth,’ she told VGC.

Neither PlatinumGames nor Nintendo have released an official statement on the matter. Jennifer Hale, the new voice actor for Bayonetta, did offer her own on Monday, but it was to confirm that she’s under an NDA and thus can’t really comment on the situation.

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Frankly, the whole thing has become incredibly messy, not helped by Nintendo’s and PlatinumGames’ insistence on complete secrecy. This has quickly become a classic example of their approach backfiring, since if they’d been open about the change of actor earlier they could have avoided such damaging publicity just days from the game’s launch.

Not only that, but it’s already overshadowing the core issue, which is that voice actors are treated unfairly within the industry and are generally poorly paid. Now, though, it’s more about who’s in the right and who’s lying.

Bayonetta 3 launches for Nintendo Switch on October 28.

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