Rob & Michele Reiner Reportedly Told Conan O’Brien They Wanted to ‘Keep an Eye’ on Son Nick Hours Before He Allegedly Murdered Them
StyleCaster Editors
As tributes start pouring in for Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, the final moments before their tragic deaths have been increasingly examined.
Rob and Michele Reiner were found dead in their Brentwood homes on Dec. 14. Their son, Nick, was arrested in connection with their murders and is charged with two counts of first-degree murder as well as a special allegation that he used a dangerous and deadly weapon, a knife.
On Dec. 17, Rob and Michele’s children Romy and Jake made a statement: “Words cannot even begin to describe the unimaginable pain we are experiencing every moment of the day. The horrific and devastating loss of our parents, Rob and Michele Reiner, is something that no one should ever experience. They weren’t just our parents; they were our best friends.”
They continued, “We are grateful for the outpouring of condolences, kindness, and support we have received not only from family and friends but people from all walks of life. We now ask for respect and privacy, for speculation to be tempered with compassion and humanity, and for our parents to be remembered for the incredible lives they lived and the love they gave.”
Their daugher Romy reportedly entered the house and found her father’s dead body after a massage therapist couldn’t contact her parents. After paramedics arrived, Romy learned that her mother was dead.
What were Michele Reiner’s last words?
While Michele Reiner’s last words haven’t been disclosed, their friend, activist and actress Jane Fonda, recalled seeing them the day before they died. “Rob and Michele Reiner were wonderful, caring, smart, funny, generous people, always coming up with ideas for how to make the world better, kinder,” she wrote on Instagram. “They had been helping me launch the Committee for the First Amendment. I saw them night before last looking healthy and happy. I am reeling with grief. Stunned.”
Rob Reiner’s close friend and Monty Python star Eric Idle revealed that he talked to the director just hours before his death. “Rob Reiner was a lovely man,” the comedian wrote in a post on X. “I spoke to him last night for over an hour. I always enjoyed his company.”
“Last thing he said to me was ‘See you next year..’ Such a terrible end. Such a sweet man,” he wrote on the post, according to the Daily Mail. The post has since been edited, and currently does not contain that segment.
Sources told Rolling Stone that the Reiners asked if they could bring Nick to Conan O’Brien’s party out of concern for him and to “keep an eye on him.” The This Is Spinal Tap director and his wife reportedly apologized to O’Brien about their son’s behavior and left the party.
According to TMZ, Nick and his parents were in a “very loud argument” at Conan O’Brien’s house, and sources told the site that “Michele had been anguishing to friends over the last few months that she and Rob were at their wits’ end over Nick’s mental illness and alleged substance abuse issues, and did not know what to do with their son Nick, saying, ‘We’ve tried everything.’”
The family has been open about Nick’s struggle with addiction. The father and son collaborated on the 2015 semi-autobiographical film Being Charlie. When Nick would tell us that it wasn’t working for him, we wouldn’t listen,” Rob told The Los Angeles Times in 2015 about their son’s stints in rehab. “We were desperate, and because the people had diplomas on their wall, we listened to them when we should have been listening to our son.”
Michele added, “We were so influenced by these people. They would tell us he’s a liar, that he was trying to manipulate us. And we believed them.”
What were Rob and Michele Reiner’s official causes of death?
A coroner for the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed the couple died Sunday from “multiple sharp force injuries.”
