Watch: Jake Reiner Details Learning Parents Rob Reiner, Michele Reiner Died
Jake Reiner understands those who are invested in the details surrounding his parents’ tragic December deaths. But to the 34-year-old, it’s not a gripping much-watch drama, just an unfathomable reality.
One that began on Dec. 14 when younger sister Romy Reiner called to tell him that their father, legendary filmmaker Rob Reiner, was dead. “Minutes later, she called back,” he detailed in an April 24 Substack post, to let him know their mother Michele Singer Reiner had been killed as well.
“My world, as I knew it, had collapsed,” he continued. “I was in a trance. The only thing I could focus on was that I needed to get to my childhood home. I needed to get to my sister. I needed to figure out what the hell just happened.”
And the awful realities continued to unfold.
Hours after Rob and Michele’s bodies were found inside their Los Angeles-area home, Jake’s brother Nick Reiner (he and Romy also have an older sister, Tracy Reiner from Rob’s marriage to Penny Marshall) was arrested for their murders. The 32-year-old later entered a plea of not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder with a special circumstance of multiple murders during his Feb. 23 Los Angeles arraignment.
“A lot of people have said to me, ‘I don’t even know what to say,’ and I don’t blame them,” Jake wrote. “If I weren’t in the middle of this s–tstorm, I wouldn’t know what to say either. It’s too specific. Too dark.”
“We lost more than half of our family that night in the most violent way imaginable,” the aspiring actor, writer and producer continued. “Sure, any loss of a parent is devastating, but nothing compares to losing both of them at the same time and, on top of that, having your brother be at the center of it.”
And on April 29, the family will begin a new act. Nick—represented by public defender Kimberly Greene since his previous attorney Alan Jackson announced he had withdrawn from the case—has remained in jail without bail since his arrest. And at his preliminary hearing, a date will be set for the hearing that will determine if there’s enough evidence for him to stand trial.
As the process unfolds, learn more about the unbelievably tragic case.
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Michael Tullberg/Getty Images; Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for DIFF
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Instagram/Michele Reiner
Michele Reiner/Instagram
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Photo by CHRIS TORRES / POOL / AFP via Getty Images
