Musician Kay Hanley Voiced “Josie and the Pussycats”. Now, She's Fighting for SAG Residuals Missing Since 2009 (Exclusive)

The Letters to Cleo lead singer opens up to PEOPLE about her quest to recoup residuals from the 2001 cult-classic

NEED TO KNOW

• Kay Hanley, who voiced Josie in Josie and the Pussycats, speaks to PEOPLE about her quest to recoup her missing SAG-AFTRA residuals
• “I’ve never experienced anything like this, really. It’s overwhelming,” says the Letters to Cleo singer of the support she’s received
• Hanley shared a June 18 post on X, revealing she was missing residuals and was on the verge of losing her health insurance

"I really didn't mean to turn this into a thing," Kay Hanley tells PEOPLE over the phone from Los Angeles. The "thing" the Letters to Cleo musician is referring to is a June 18 tweet she was convinced to post by two comedy writer friends that went viral, claiming that she was missing residuals from SAG-AFTRA, the union that represents screen actors and voice performers.

According to Hanley, since the film Josie and the Pussycats was released in 2001, she had only received $1,500 for her voice work. "I was about to lose my health insurance," she says.

Hanley claims her payments stopped in 2009, and alleges they weren't even close to what she had received for her band's on-screen appearance — and work on — the 1999 hit rom-com 10 Things I Hate About You. 

I'm not being paid residuals for my singing on Josie & the Pussycats bc film producers failed to provide paperwork to @sagaftra for my 20+ vocal sessions in 2000. SAG says I had 2 years (??) to report but I found out this year.
Didn't hit 25 earnings. l lose my health ins July1

— ☠️ Kay Hanley ☠️ (@kayhanley) June 18, 2026

However, it was always Hanley — lead singer of the Boston alt-rock band Letters to Cleo — who was behind the titular Josie's vocals on the soundtrack, which features nine original tracks with writing credits from Babyface, That Dog's Anna Waronker, Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger, Counting Crows' Adam Duritz and The Go-Go's Jane Wiedlin.

It was Hanley's friend Dave Gibbs, from Letters to Cleo's "brother band," the Gigolo Aunts, who was already working on the project and thought she'd be a good fit for the voice of Josie. At the time, Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, who was the executive producer of songs for the film, had already hired a Black rock singer from Atlanta to fill the role. Rachael Leigh Cook was set to play Josie on-screen.

But the artist's vocals didn't correlate with Cook, now 46, on-screen. "I flew out to be the voices of the Pussycats, and by the time I got to L.A., Babyface had to let the original Josie singer go because she was too good, and her voice was just too big to feel natural coming out of Rachael's mouth when they tested it," recalls Hanley.

In the end, while Cook wielded a guitar, cat ears and glitter-heavy Y2K glamour, Hanley cut her teeth in the studio recording sessions for nine of the faux band's songs featured on the soundtrack, including cult-favorites like "3 Small Words," "Pretend to Be Nice" and "Spin Around." (According to her, there are several unreleased tracks from the soundtrack, including a song called "Merry Go Round," which Gibbs has, as well as songs with the originally hired singer.)

Allegedly, Hanley had an "artist deal" for the soundtrack. She was profiting from soundtrack sales, but the SAG residuals had stalled. But late last year, the lack of SAG residuals began to weigh on her.

"I have to hit $27,000 through SAG earnings, whether it's through residuals or through SAG contracted sessions, in order to get my health benefits and pension points for the year," the 57-year-old singer-songwriter explains. "And at the end of 2025, I started doing the math, and I was like, ‘I don't think I'm going to make it.'"

While it wasn't the first time she's struggled to hit the SAG earnings threshold, Hanley felt like she needed to dig into why some of the residuals of projects she's been a part of had been "straggling."

Candidly, she felt confident that she'd be able to navigate the situation. But after a handful of phone calls and emails with SAG, Hanley claims she discovered that production had overpaid residuals. Those were calls she started making in 2010 or 2011, and Hanley says she was repeatedly told residuals wouldn't start coming again until SAG had recouped its overpayment.

"I had never heard of this before, but that's what happened," she claims. "And those residuals were divided up amongst the cast based on hours on set."

Hanley says she figured out was that SAG thinks she was only on set for one day or was an extra on Josie and the Pussycats. "I was certainly not in the studio for one day to do all of that work," she says, noting that SAG seemingly believes she was. "[And] I did not get the daily union scale for my sessions."

Hanley is in the process of combing through paperwork between her lawyer and manager to help her recoup residuals. "Everything's on paper," she says. "There's no digital form of any of this stuff." But as a small business owner, she's used to chasing people for payments.

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But Hanley is humbled by the amount of love people have for Josie and the Pussycats amid its 25th anniversary and how the fan community rallied around her. "It's kind of unbelievable," she says. "I've never experienced anything like this, really. It's overwhelming. People just really care about [Josie and the Pussycats] on a visceral level."

While Hanley remains admittedly surprised by the reaction to her recent tweet, she's hopeful that the situation will be resolved. "At this point there's a big difference between popping off on social media and actually presenting your case," she says. "I would like people to know that this, for me, is just another week, and I will get it done one phone call at a time, one email at a time…and I will grind it out until I get f—ing paid."

Reps for Universal, MGM and SAG-AFTRA did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.

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