Rob Reiner’s son Nick arrested on suspicion of murder after director, wife are found dead

Rob Reiner’s son Nick was arrested on suspicion of murdering his parents after the Hollywood legend and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were found dead at their Brentwood home Sunday.

Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said that officers responded to the Reiner home about 3:40 p.m. Nick Reiner, 32, was found in South Los Angeles near USC, about 15 miles from the scene of the stabbing, and arrested around 9:15 p.m., according to a law enforcement source who was not authorized to speak publicly.

“Our hearts go out to the family and friends of the Reiners,” McDonnell said at a news conference Monday, calling the situation “a tragic incident.”

Authorities have issued a search warrant for the Reiner home, McDonnell said, adding that it’s a “critical piece of our investigation.”

Rob Reiner, who starred as Michael Stivic, also known as “Meathead,” in the sitcom “All in the Family” and whose hits as a director included the cultural touchstones “When Harry Met Sally,” “The Princess Bride” and “This Is Spinal Tap,” was 78. Michele Singer Reiner, a photographer and producer, was 70.

News of the killings sent shock waves across Hollywood and the country’s political establishment. Rob Reiner was also a leading political voice, campaigning for liberal causes such as gay marriage.

Former President Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in a statement that they are “heartbroken by the tragic deaths of our friends Rob and Michele Reiner.”

“They inspired and uplifted millions through their work in film and television,” the Clintons wrote. “And they were good, generous people who made everyone who knew them better through their active citizenship in defense of inclusive democracy, setting an example for us all to follow.”

Family friends told The Times that Rob and Nick Reiner got into an argument at a holiday party at talk show host Conan O’Brien’s home Saturday evening. Many party guests noticed Nick acting strangely, the friends said.

Nick Reiner, who had struggled with addiction for years, was living in a guesthouse on his parents’ property, a family friend said, and his mother had become increasingly concerned about his mental health in recent weeks.

Family friends, who did not want to be identified because of the nature of the crime, said the Reiners’ daughter was the first on the scene Sunday afternoon.

Law enforcement sources told The Times that there was no sign of forced entry into the home in the 200 block of Chadbourne Avenue. The sources also said the Reiners had injuries consistent with being stabbed.

Nick Reiner was not at the home when police arrived, law enforcement sources said. He was tracked down later that evening by officers with the L.A. Police Department’s Gang and Narcotics Division along with a U.S. Marshals task force that typically searches for fugitives, according to a law enforcement source and and Reiner’s booking record..

He is being held in L.A. County jail without bail, according to the Police Department and jail records. Authorities have not provided details about a possible motive.

In a post on Truth Social on Monday, President Trump suggested that Rob Reiner’s “Trump derangement syndrome” might have led to the killings, comments that drew bipartisan backlash.

Among those reacting was California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who called Trump a “sick man” in a post on X, and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), who said the president’s comments about Reiner were “inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered.”

The challenges the Reiners faced with their son Nick have played out partially in the spotlight. In interviews, Nick Reiner has described cycling in and out of rehab and experiencing bouts of homelessness as a teenager. Rob and Michele Reiner said they wondered whether Nick’s life would end badly.

By 2015, Nick Reiner had gotten clean, working with his father on “Being Charlie,” a semi-autobiographical film about a successful actor with political ambitions and a son addicted to drugs.

The conflicts between father and son in the movie mirrored real life. A climactic scene in which the father apologized for being cruel in pushing his son toward recovery — “I’d rather you hate me and you be alive” — was taken almost verbatim from their own lives, the Reiners told The Times.

“It was very, very hard going through it the first time, with these painful and difficult highs and lows,” Rob Reiner said at the time. “And then making the movie dredged it all up again.”

But he said the movie, which he directed and Nick co-wrote, allowed them to work through a lot of past trauma and develop a closer relationship.

Since then, Nick Reiner’s path hasn’t been linear. In a 2018 podcast, he said he was smoking pot and taking Adderall. At one point, he said, he was sequestered in his parent’s guesthouse “totally spun out on uppers.”

“I think it was coke and something else — and I was up for days on end,” he told the hosts of the Dopey podcast. “I started punching out some things in my guesthouse. I started with the TV. Everything in the guesthouse got wrecked.”

After that incident, which he said was triggered by his parents telling him he “had to go,” he ended up in a detox center and a sober living facility on the East Coast.

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Rob Reiner was a co-founder of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which led the successful legal fight to overturn Proposition 8, a measure passed by California voters in 2008 that banned same-sex marriage. He has also been active on children’s issues, campaigning for Proposition 10, which created an ambitious early childhood development program.

Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, attend the 46th Kennedy Center Honors gala in Washington in December 2023.

(Kent Nishimura / AFP / Getty Images)

From 1971 to 1981, Reiner was married to Penny Marshall, star of “Laverne & Shirley.” He met photographer Michele Singer on the set of “When Harry Met Sally,” and the two married in 1989. The couple in the movie, played by Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, originally crossed paths over the years without ending up together. Inspired by his new romance, Reiner rewrote the final scene with the characters reuniting and marrying, which helped make the film a beloved classic.

Michele Singer Reiner produced films including “Shock and Awe,” “Albert Brooks: Defending My Life” and “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues,” all directed by her husband. She also produced “God & Country,” a look at Christian nationalism in the U.S.

The Reiners had three children: Jake, born in 1991; Nick, born in 1993; and Romy, born in 1997.

A police officer rolls out crime scene tape outside the home of Rob Reiner in Brentwood on Sunday night.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

On Monday morning, reporters gathered around the entrance to the Reiner home as police continued their investigation.

Walking by on her way home from an appointment, Jocelyn McAllister said the killings undermine the sense of security that the neighborhood’s tall fences and thick hedges are intended to bring.

“You see the hedges, but what do you need hedges for when it comes to your own child?” she said.

A mother of three, McAllister said she has been thinking about how families — regardless of income — deal with addiction and mental illness, and the sense of helplessness the Reiners might have felt.

“You can only do so much as a parent,” she said.

Chief of Detectives Alan Hamilton speaks to the media at a news conference Sunday night in Brentwood.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Despite his tragic end, McAllister said, Rob Reiner will be remembered for the “lightness” of his movies, which brought her and many others happiness and laughs.

“I heard someone say that people won’t remember you for who you are, but how you made them feel,” she said.

Times staff writer Christie D’Zurilla contributed to this report.