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Cobra Kai costars Mary Mouser and Tanner Buchanan are engaged: 'Such a special moment'

 

(ew.com February 14, 2025)

Cobra Kai may be ending, but it's just the beginning for costars Mary Mouser and Tanner Buchanan.

The actors announced that they're engaged to be married in joint Instagram post Thursday, adding, "This is such a special moment in our lives, the closing of one chapter and celebrating the continuation of another. We're so grateful for the love and support, and though we're partial to having our private moments, we're excited to share this check-in to our world."

The announcement confirmed fan speculation that has been raging for years over the pair's offscreen relationship. Mouser, 28, and Buchanan, 26, have been castmates on all six seasons of Cobra Kai. Their characters in the Karate Kid sequel series — Sam "Bonsai Badass" LaRusso and martial arts prodigy Robby Keene — started dating in season 2 but subsequently broke up. Meanwhile, the actors have been spotted in public together on several occasions.

In 2022, Buchanan and Mouser shared photos from Disneyland Paris in which they donned matching outfits. But they waited until this week to publicly confirm their relationship.

Buchanan told PEOPLE at a series finale event Wednesday that Mouser was "a hundred percent" his closest confidante on the series, adding, "But to be honest, literally everybody… There's not one person that we don't hang out with and have fun with, and we truly keep saying that we're going to be around in each other's lives forever."

Cobra Kai premiered on YouTube Red in 2018 and later moved to Netflix. When the show was renewed for a sixth season in 2023, the streamer announced it would be the swan song.

Creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg wrote in a letter to fans, "Reacquainting the world with the Karate Kid universe has been our humble honor… This fandom is the BEST on the planet and we hope to be telling more Karate Kid stories with you down the line."

https://ew.com/cobra-kai-stars-tanner-buchanan-mary-mouser-engaged-11679644

Cobra Kai star Courtney Henggeler quits acting after 20 years in the business: 'We survived off the crumbs'

(ew.com April 14, 2025)

Cobra Kai star Courtney Henggeler is throwing in the towel on acting.

"After 20-plus years of fighting the good fight in the acting business, I hung up my gloves on Friday. I called my agents and told them I was tapping out. I no longer wanted to be a cog in the wheel of the machine,” Henggeler wrote in a lengthy post on her Substack account that she shared on her official Instagram.

Though she didn't specify what her next steps would be, she did share that she told her agents, "I want to be the machine" instead. She continued, "All I’ve ever known in my professional life was acting. But not even the art or craft of acting. All I’ve truly ever knew was the hustle. The hustle, the grind, sprinkled occasionally with the odd acting job. Perhaps a line or two to TV’s Dr. House - 'Sorry' (that’s it. That was my line. Genius). Nailed it. Or a recurring guest-star that never seemed to recur….Whatever the opposite of nailing it is."

Though she is best known for playing Amanda LaRusso in all six seasons of Cobra Kai, prior to that, Henggeler had small roles in Jane the Virgin, Working Class, Bones, Henry Danger, Royal Pains, Mom, NCIS, Criminal Minds, and The Big Bang Theory. On the film side, she also appeared in Friends with Benefits, Nobody's Fool, and Feed.

But, ultimately, after each job, Henggeler found it was "back to the grind," which left her feeling hungry. "We survived off the crumbs. We filled our cup with the possibility; our mugs with delusion. Our plates were empty, but a golden goose hung over our heads. Today might be the day. Today might be the day I reach the golden goose," she wrote.

Henggeler's announcement came on the heels of Netflix's decision to end Cobra Kai with its sixth and final season, which debuted on the streamer in February.

With the success and consistent work coming from Cobra Kai, Henggeler knew she was finally considered "one of the lucky ones," but she still found herself "famished" by it all. "I was on a series. A successful series. I made money. My face was on the billboards I longed for 20 plus years. I was directed by George Clooney for godsakes. This by all definitions is the golden goose," she shared.

Henggeler continued, "For years I silenced the voice in my head, begging me to walk away. The voice, the constant gnawing. Not because of the acting itself. But because of the gauntlet I had to run to reach the acting. What once felt necessary, something I willingly participated, even celebrated, became stifling."

She concluded her post with a series of rhetorical questions that suggested she's found peace with her decision to step away from acting: "What if we choose to believe we have the power? What if we had it all along? ... What if we never needed to run the gauntlet? What if we are the gauntlet?"

https://ew.com/cobra-kai-star-courtney-henggeler-quits-acting-after-20-years-11715244

Train with hunger