Rob Reiner’s son has been arrested and is being held in Los Angeles after the Hollywood director and his wife were found dead at home, according to jail records.
Nick Reiner, 32, is being held on $4 million bail, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff. He was arrested after 9pm on Sunday, records show. No information about the charges he faces was available.
A spokesman for the Reiner family confirmed their deaths, saying: “It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner. We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time.”
President Trump reacted to the deaths in a post on Truth Social. He suggested a political motive, though no such evidence has been presented by police.
“A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS,” Trump wrote.
“He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”
Reports first emerged that a man, approximately 78 years old, and a 68-year-old woman had been found at a home that records showed was owned by Reiner.
• Rob Reiner’s five best movies
Investigators believe they suffered stab wounds and are treating the incident as a crime. A family member is being questioned by investigators, an official told the Associated Press.
A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles fire department said firefighters were called to an address on Chadbourne Avenue in Brentwood at 3.38pm on Sunday for a “medical aid request”.
The Los Angeles police department’s robbery homicide division is investigating the incident. Local news cameras showed a heavy police presence at the address.
Rob Reiner at the 75th annual Cannes film festival in 2022 in Cannes, France
ANDREAS RENTZ/GETTY IMAGES
Reiner with When Harry Met Sally cast members Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal in 2019
MARIO ANZUONI//REUTERS
Reiner, 78, was a prolific filmmaker whose acclaimed movies during a hot spell in the 1980s include This is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, When Harry Met Sally and The Princess Bride.
He first found fame as an actor and was known for playing Michael “Meathead” Stivic in the 1970s television classic All in the Family.
Reiner met Michele Singer, 68, while making the beloved romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally, and they married in 1989. They had three children.
Reiner, whose father Carl Reiner was a well-known comedian and actor, revealed last year that he changed the ending of the film because of Singer. It originally had a tragic ending.
“The original ending of the film that we had was that Harry and Sally didn’t get together,” Reiner told CNN. “I had been married for ten years, I’d been single for ten years, and I couldn’t figure out how I was ever going to be with anybody. And that gave birth to When Harry Met Sally.”
Reiner said that the original ending was going to feature Harry, played by Billy Crystal, and Sally, played by Meg Ryan, meeting after several years, then walking away from each other.
However, finding love again prompted Reiner to take a more romantic approach. He said: “I met my wife Michele, who I’ve been married to now 35 years. I met her while we were making the film, and I changed the ending.”
Reiner’s other films include Misery and A Few Good Men, which was nominated for the best picture Oscar.
Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, said that he was “heartbroken” and praised Reiner for his political activism. He said: “His boundless empathy made his stories timeless, teaching generations how to see goodness and righteousness in others — and encouraging us to dream bigger.
“That empathy extended well beyond his films. Rob was a passionate advocate for children and for civil rights — from taking on Big Tobacco, fighting for marriage equality, to serving as a powerful voice in early education. He made California a better place through his good works.”
Eric Idle, the Monty Python actor, said that he had known Reiner for more than 50 years. He wrote on X: “Rob Reiner was a lovely man. I spoke to him last night for over an hour. I always enjoyed his company. I met him at his dad’s in 1975.
“He was telling me about filming at Stonehenge and his thoughts for the future. This is so awful. I shall miss him. A clever, talented and very thoughtful man. So awful.”
Reiner and the son now accused of killing him worked on a 2015 film inspired by Nick’s struggle with addiction to heroin. Nick wrote Being Charlie with a friend he met in rehab. His famous father directed the film, which starred Cary Elwes.
Reiner and his wife said Being Charlie reflected the lack of success the family had in using traditional recovery methods to keep their son clean. “The programme works for some people but it can’t work for everybody,” Reiner told the Los Angeles Times in 2015. “When Nick would tell us that it wasn’t working for him, we wouldn’t listen. 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.”
Reiner had been a staunch critic of Trump since before he won the presidency the first time. The Oscar-nominated filmmaker used social media and regular appearances on television to warn against what he viewed as an autocrat in the White House.
Reiner at a Democratic fundraiser with Hillary Clinton in 2008
REUTERS/MARK AVERY
Last year Reiner produced the documentary God & Country, which explored the rise of Christian nationalism in the US and its links to far-right politics.
In February, Reiner explained why he used his platform to criticise Trump. “Our founding fathers never imagined that the United States of America would be run by a convicted felon,” he said. “And that compels me to add whatever resistance I can to try to correct that.”
In October Reiner told viewers of the liberal news network MSNBC that America could cease to be a democracy within the next 12 months.
“This is just the beginning and people have to understand our democracy is being taken away from us,” he said. “We have a year before this country becomes a full on autocracy and democracy completely leaves us.”