Rayna Vallandingham

About Rayna Vallandingham

Rayna Jade Vallandingham is an American actress, internet personality, model, producer, and martial artist. She is the youngest black belt martial artist to attain 12 World Championship Titles.

In 2011, at age 8, Vallandingham won 4 World Titles in Little Rock, Ark (the Triple Crown in Traditional; Forms, Weapons, Sparing and Creative Weapons) making her the youngest black belt ever to win a Championship (competing against girls twice her size and a number of years older). The next year (2012) she won 6 more world championships (Triple Crown in Traditional, Creative Weapons, XMA Forms, and XMA Weapons), and in 2013 she won the XMA Forms World Championship.

After winning her latest World Championship she flew to Los Angeles to debut in Phillip Rhee's film "Underdogs" as Leticia. Rayna has traveled across the globe; performing, teaching, and making appearances. She has also modeled and explored other areas of the entertainment industry; such as writing, stunts, and more. She is a Brand Ambassador for the American Tae Kwon Do Association; as she films campaigns, videos, does interviews, photo shoots, appearances, etc. She was the youngest to compete in the 12-14 group on ESPN, and performed in front an audience of thousands of people. Vallandingham is a part of the Youth by Shawn Mendes music video, in which she demonstrates her martial arts skills along with many other talented individuals in this monumental video. Rayna continues to attend acting classes in Los Angeles frequently, and has many exciting projects nearing.

In 2024, Vallandingham starred in her first television show on Netflix's martial arts series, Cobra Kai. She plays a supporting antagonist in the final season, portraying Zara Malik, a cocky, high-maintenance, social media influencer, and skilled martial artist, as a co-captain under the dojo Iron Dragons, starring besides Lewis Tan as Sensei Wolf and Patrick Luwis as Axel Kovačević. Malik was introduced during the Sekai Taikai tournament as the defending champions and as an undefeated rival team. In the third part of Season 6's Cobra Kai, Vallandingham took on her role as Zara Malik again, where she took her first defeat in competitive action against Tory Nichols, portrayed by Peyton List, in the Sekai Taikai girls finals.

Vallandingham is featured in the 2025 edition of Sports Illustrated's annual Swimsuit Edition.

Vallandingham is of Dutch and Indian descent. As of March 2026, Vallandingham has amassed 3.1 million followers on TikTok and 727,000 subscribers on her YouTube platform.