Courtney Henggeler, known for her role as Amanda LaRusso in the hit Netflix series "Cobra Kai", announced her retirement from acting in a Substack post on March 30. She stated, "After more than two decades in the acting industry, I hung up my gloves last Friday. I expressed to my agents my unwillingness to continue being a component in the industry's machine. When asked about what I wanted to do, I simply stated that I desired to be the machine myself."

"Cobra Kai" concluded six successful seasons over seven years, with the show originally starting on "YouTube Red" and later moving to Netflix after two seasons. The final season was divided into six parts and was released in stages in July 2024, November 2024, and February 2025 due to actor and writer strikes. In the series, Henggeler played Amanda LaRusso, wife of Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and mother of Samantha (Mary Mouser) and Anthony (Griffin Santopietro).

Henggeler shared: “All I’ve experienced in my career life is acting. Truly, what I knew more was the hustle, the grind, sometimes dotted with sporadic acting gigs. After each job, it was back to the hustle. Back to the system.” She made her TV debut in a "House" episode in 2005 and her latest big-screen appearance was in George Clooney’s “The Boys in the Boat."

Reflecting on her career, she proposed a fresh perspective, stating: “What if we choose to believe we have the power? And that we’ve possessed it all along? Perhaps we've been relinquishing it because we're told that's how it's done. We sign up for the challenges, we participate in the challenges to validate our worth, to earn our spot, to be crowned the power. What if we never needed to face the challenge? What if we are the challenge?”