Troubled past of Rob Reiner’s son, Nick Reiner, arrested after his parents’ deaths

Hollywood director and wife Michele found dead at their Los Angeles home

Director Rob Reiner and his son Nick Reiner at an event to promote their film Being Charlie in 2016. Getty Images

Nick Reiner, the 32-year-old son of American actor and director Rob Reiner, was arrested and held without bail on Monday following the deaths of his parents in their Los Angeles home.

Police will present a case on Tuesday to prosecutors who will then decide whether or how to charge Nick Reiner, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said in a statement on X.

Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner were found dead at their home in the Brentwood neighbourhood on Sunday.

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The LAPD at the time described the deaths as “an apparent homicide”, with the victims having wounds consistent with that of a stabbing. Police haven’t said anything about a motive.

It was “a very, very tragic incident,” LAPD chief Jim McDonnell said at a press conference on Monday.

Who is Nick Reiner?

Nick is the middle child of the Reiners, who had been married since 1989. Their eldest son, Jake, 34 is an actor and producer, while their youngest, Romy, 27, is also an actor and a writer.

Rob also adopted Tracy, 61, the daughter of his first wife, actress Penny Marshall and her husband Michael Henry. Even after his divorce from Marshall in 1981, he continued to have a close relationship with both her and Tracy. Marshall died in 2018 from complications of diabetes.

Rob and Michele Reiner with their children, from left, Jake, Romy and Nick. AP

Born in 1993, Nick struggled with addiction from the age of 15 and spent several stints in rehab. By 18, he had been in and out of treatment facilities, with bouts of homelessness and relapses in between. He told People in 2016 that he had already entered rehab 17 times.

Nick explored that aspect of his life, as well as his difficult relationship with his parents, in the 2015 film Being Charlie. With a script by Nick and directed by Rob, the film follows the exploits of 18-year-old Charlie Mills who is in and out of rehab facilities, repeatedly relapsing and running away, unable or unwilling to commit to recovery. It's a bare-bones look at the messy, cyclical nature of addiction and the emotional toll it takes on families.

Flowers left on the Walk of Fame star for Rob Reiner in Hollywood, Los Angeles. AP

It was not autobiographical but included several elements of their lives.

“It forced us to understand ourselves better than we had,” Rob Reiner told the AP in 2016. “I told Nick while we were making it, I said, ‘You know it doesn’t matter, whatever happens to this thing, we won already.’”

Rob and Michelle admitted their own struggles in dealing with their son's addiction in 2015. “When Nick would tell us that it wasn’t working for him, we wouldn’t listen,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “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.”

Family 'heartbroken'

The Reiner family issued a statement on Sunday, saying they were “heartbroken by this sudden loss” and asked for privacy.

Rob Reiner was one of the most prolific directors in Hollywood, and his work included some of the most memorable movies of the 1980s and 1990s, including This is Spinal Tap, A Few Good Men, When Harry Met Sally and The Princess Bride.

An aerial view of director Rob Reiner's home in Brentwood, California. AFP

His role as Michael “Meathead” Stivic in Norman Lear’s 1970s TV classic All in the Family catapulted him to fame and won him two Emmy Awards.

The son of comedy legend Carl Reiner, Rob married photographer Michele in 1989, while he was directing When Harry Met Sally.