Nick Reiner Was Reportedly Acting ‘Dangerously & Erratically’ as Sources Detail His ‘Toxic’ Mental State in the Moments Leading Up to His Parents’ Alleged Murders
StyleCaster Editors
New details are emerging of Rob Reiner‘s son’s alleged behaviors before he was charged with the murder of his father and mother, Michele.
Nick, the son of The Princess Bride director, was arrested and charged with two counts of murder, and faces the special circumstance of multiple murders. He is being held without bail. Rob and Michele’s two children Jake and Romy, released a statement about the situation “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,” the statement read. “They weren’t just our parents; they were our best friends.”
Why did Nick Reiner do it?
While an official motive hasn’t been released, many tabloid outlets have reported on the director’s son’s behavior leading up to Rob and Michele Reiner’s death.
TMZ reported that Nick Reiner was diagnosed with schizophrenia in the weeks leading up to his parents’ murder. Sources told the site that 3 to 4 weeks before the murders, doctors changed his meds and he became even more erratic. The source claimed that they were adjusting the medications so Nick stabilized, but it wasn’t working. The change reportedly made him “erratic and dangerous.”
A source also told Rob Shuter’s Shuterscoop that Nick had been romantically rejected weeks before. “He’d just been turned down,” an insider told the Substack. “He was awkward, overbearing, and completely unable to handle rejection. People didn’t stick around because he came on too strong.”
Those close to him describe repeated failed attempts to connect, mostly online, that only reinforced his anger and isolation. “He’d think there was chemistry, then they’d disappear,” another source explains. “Instead of learning, he doubled down, and it made him even more toxic to anyone around him.”
“Nick couldn’t read social cues,” one insider adds. “He drove people away with desperation and obsession.”
At Rob and Michele Reiner’s memorial service, an undisclosed celebrity recalled the director saying he was scared of his son at Conan O’Brien’s party. “I’m petrified of [Nick]. I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I’m afraid of my son. I think my own son can hurt me,” the unspecified celeb recalled Rob said, according to a source who was at the funeral service, which was held at comedian Albert Brooks’ mansion in Los Angeles, per the Daily Mail.
The 32-year-old reportedly had a tense conversation with actor Bill Hader at Conan O’Brien’s holiday party on Dec. 13. Sources told NBC News that Nick had allegedly interrupted Hader’s conversation. When the comedian told him that the conversation was private, Reiner’s son appeared to stand still and stare before “storming off.”
Nick spoke to People about his struggle with addiction in 2016 when he wrote the semi-autobiographical film Being Charlie, which his father directed. “I was homeless in Maine. I was homeless in New Jersey. I was homeless in Texas,” he said. “I spent nights on the street. I spent weeks on the street. It was not fun.”
“It was very, very hard going through it the first time, with these painful and difficult highs and lows,” the director told the LA Times in 2016 about making the movie. “And then making the movie dredged it all up again.”
In a movie Q&A, Rob said “there were disagreements” and “at times it was really rough” when the pair were trying to depict the father-son relationship. Nick said, “Sometimes it would get overwhelming for me.”
