Rob Reiner’s son Nick arrested after director and his wife found dead at their Los Angeles home
Police say the younger son of the director-actor and his wife, Michele, is being held on $4 million bail.
LOS ANGELES — Rob Reiner’s younger son, Nick Reiner, was in jail Monday after being booked for what investigators believe was the fatal stabbing of the director-actor and his wife at their Los Angeles home a day earlier, authorities said.
It was not immediately clear what charges Nick Reiner, 32, would face. A police statement said he was being held without bail and the case will be presented to the district attorney’s office on Tuesday.
Representatives for the Reiner family did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and it wasn’t immediately clear if Nick Reiner had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
Nick Reiner has spoken publicly of his struggles with addiction. By 18, he had cycled in and out of treatment facilities with bouts of homelessness and relapses in between. Rob and Nick Reiner explored their difficult relationship and Nick Reiner’s struggles with drugs in a semi-autobiographical 2016 film, Being Charlie.
Rob and Michele Singer Reiner were found dead Sunday afternoon at their home in Los Angeles, and investigators believe they were stabbed, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official, who was briefed on the investigation, could not publicly discuss the details and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Nick Reiner was arrested Sunday around 9:15 p.m., police said.
The Los Angeles Fire Department said it responded to a medical aid request shortly after 3:30 p.m. Sunday and found a 78-year-old man and 68-year-old woman dead inside. Reiner turned 78 in March.
Detectives with the Robbery Homicide Division were investigating an “apparent homicide” at Reiner’s home, police Capt. Mike Bland said Sunday.
Reiner was long one of the most prolific directors in Hollywood, and his work included some of the most memorable movies of the 1980s and ’90s, including This Is Spinal Tap, A Few Good Men, When Harry Met Sally, and The Princess Bride.
His role as Michael “Meathead” Stivic in Norman Lear’s 1970s TV classic All in the Family, as a liberal foil to O’Connor’s Archie Bunker, catapulted him to fame and won him two Emmy Awards.
The son of comedy legend Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner was married to photographer Michele Singer Reiner since 1989. The two met while he was directing When Harry Met Sally and had three children together: Nick, Jake, and Romy.
Relatives of Lear, the legendary producer who died in 2023, said their deaths left them bereft.
“Norman often referred to Rob as a son, and their close relationship was extraordinary, to us and the world,” said a Lear family statement. “Norman would have wanted to remind us that Rob and Michele spent every breath trying to make this country a better place, and they pursued that through their art, their activism, their philanthropy, and their love for family and friends.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called it a devastating loss for the city.
“Rob Reiner’s contributions reverberate throughout American culture and society, and he has improved countless lives through his creative work and advocacy fighting for social and economic justice,” Bass said in a statement. “An acclaimed actor, director, producer, writer, and engaged political activist, he always used his gifts in service of others.”
Reiner was previously married to actor-director Penny Marshall from 1971 to 1981. He adopted her daughter, Tracy Reiner. Carl Reiner died in 2020 at age 98 and Marshall died in 2018.
Killings are rare in the Brentwood neighborhood. The scene is about a mile from the home where O.J. Simpson’s wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman were killed in 1994.