Conan O’Brien is breaking his silence about his friend Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Reiner’s deaths in December 2025.
During an interview with The New Yorker, the late-night talk show host shared how shocked he was when the Reiners were found dead in their homes on Dec. 14, one day after Rob and Michele attended his holiday party with their son Nick.
“I knew Rob and Michele, and then increasingly got closer and closer to them, and I was seeing them a lot,” he said. “My wife and I were seeing them a lot, and they were so—they were just such lovely people. And to have that experience of saying good night to somebody and having them leave and then find out the next day that they’re gone.”
He continued: “I think I was in shock for quite a while afterward. I mean, there’s no other word for it. It’s just very—it’s so awful. It’s just so awful. And I think about how Rob felt about things that are happening in the country, how involved he was, how much he put himself out there—and to have that voice go quiet in an instant is still hard for me to comprehend.”
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Rob and Michele were found dead in their Brentwood, Calif., home, and their son Nick was arrested later that same day and was charged with two counts of first-degree murder.
The couple and Nick were all at O’Brien’s Christmas party on Dec. 13, the night before they were found dead inside their home. Family and friends told the Los Angeles Times that Nick had gotten into a big fight with his parents at the party and that many people noticed him behaving strangely.
“Nick was freaking everyone out, acting crazy, kept asking people if they were famous,” a source also told People magazine.
O’Brien also commented on Rob’s “body of work,” and how many “classics” he was able to create “in quick succession.”
“Now, if you can make one great movie, that’s impressive. It’s an almost impossible feat,” he said. “To make two means that you’re one of the greats. To make seven—in, like, a nine-year, ten-year, eleven-year period—is insanity. With “Spinal Tap” alone, if that’d been the only thing he ever did, he influenced my generation enormously.”
In addition to “Spinal Tap,” the director is known for films such as “Stand by Me,” “When Harry Met Sally” and “The Princess Bride,” as well as his breakthrough role as an actor on “All In the Family.”
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During an interview with Woman’s World, in December 2025, his “All In the Family” co-star, Sally Struthers, shared the life-changing career advice she received from him while they were working together on the hit ’70s sitcom.
“If you can make the show itself more important than your own part, you will wind up offering to give up some of your lines,” Struthers recalled him telling her when she noticed her lines kept getting cut when filming the show.
Following the outpouring of tributes from celebrities and fans after Rob and Michele’s deaths, their other two children, Jake and Romy, spoke out through a statement to People, thanking everyone for their kind words.
In their statement, the two said: “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.”
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“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,” they added.
