Rachael Lillis, the voice actress behind iconic Pokémon characters Misty and Jessie, passed away on August 10, 2024, at the age of 46 after a battle with breast cancer. Diagnosed in May, Lillis’s death was vocalized by her sister, Laurie Orr, on a GoFundMe page that raised $98,000 to cover her medical expenses. There she wrote that Lillis’s passing was peaceful and expressed gratitude for support with messages, commenting that the same money, among other things, would go to a memorial service and cancer research.
Lillis’s passing was also confirmed by her co-star in the series, Pokémon, Veronica Taylor, the voice actress for Ash Ketchum in the English version of the show. Sharing the sad news across social media “with a very hard” state, Taylor called her late friend an extraordinary talent whose voice shined through in all her roles. “Rachael will be forever remembered for her iconic performances of Pokémon’s Misty and Jessie,” Taylor penned. Admiration went further to Lillis’s kindness, humor, smartness, and warmth that was felt by everyone surrounding her.
Born in 1978 in New York, Lillis was trained in opera before moving into voice acting in the 1990s. According to IMDb, she voiced for 423 episodes of Pokémon between 1997 and 2015. In the show, she also lent her voice to numerous Pokémon, from the Jigglypuff to Meowth. She continued her role as Jigglypuff in the 2019 movie Detective Pikachu and the Super Smash Bros series of video games.
Lillis was so talented and had such a dedication to her work that she became a very beloved figure within the animation community, and by all means, her work in the Pokémon series became memorable to fans from all generations. A memorial is being planned to honor this at a later date.
