Former Bayonetta voice actress Hellena Taylor has asked fans upset about her being recast in Bayonetta 3 to donate the money they would have spent on the game to charity, specifying multiple charities that have an anti-abortion stance. Bayonetta 3 has found itself the center of controversy after original Bayonetta voice actress Hellena Taylor accused PlatinumGames of offering her only $4,000 to reprise the title role, a claim she has since walked back, and now the controversy continues.
Hellena Taylor called for a boycott of Bayonetta 3 in a video on her personal Twitter account, painting the situation as a workers' rights issue. It was later clarified that Taylor was apparently offered $4,000 per session as opposed to a one-time $4,000 payment, which is an important distinction to make.
Taylor's latest tweets have stirred up even more controversy. She started a Twitter thread admitting that her posts "hit a nerve with people" and that "low pay resonates not just in the gaming industry, but in the wider world beyond, all over the planet." Taylor asked Bayonetta 3 fans who are boycotting the game to donate the money they would have spent to small local charities, specifying food banks, homeless charities, children's charities, and animal charities. She then highlighted 14 charities that she says she donated "100%" of her video game conference autograph signing fees to, including some religious charities with anti-abortion views, in case anyone looking to donate their money needs "inspiration."
TheGamer looked into some of the charities that Taylor listed in her tweet, which includes Billboards for Life, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), and Westminster Cathedral, all of which have expressed anti-abortion stances. Billboards for Life's website says that its "sole mission is to blanket cities and towns with Catholic Pro-Life Billboards raising public awareness of the sanctity of all Human Life." Its Twitter banner is a billboard of a baby with the text "I could dream before I was born!"
It remains to be seen if Taylor's attempts to convince fans to boycott Bayonetta 3 will have any real impact on the game's sales. Bayonetta 3 reviews have been overwhelmingly positive so far, positioning it firmly as one of the year's highest-rated new releases. If Bayonetta 3 sales suffer, it will likely have more to do with the stiff competition this time of year, as it shares a release date with Modern Warfare 2 and big games like God of War Ragnarok and Pokemon Scarlet and Violet launch in a matter of weeks.
Bayonetta 3 is available now, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.
Source: The Gamer