{"id":828825,"date":"2026-08-28T16:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T16:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/828825\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T16:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T16:20:09","slug":"rob-reiners-son-jake-gives-first-interview-after-parents-deaths-i-will-never-understand-why-this-happened-rob-reiner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/828825\/","title":{"rendered":"Rob Reiner\u2019s son Jake gives first interview after parents\u2019 deaths: \u2018I will never understand why this happened\u2019 | Rob Reiner"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jake Reiner has given his first interview since the killing of his parents, the film-maker Rob Reiner<\/a> and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, saying: \u201cI will never understand why this happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reiner, who directed films including The Princess Bride, This Is Spinal Tap and Stand By Me, was found dead alongside Singer Reiner<\/a> from apparent stab wounds in their home in Los Angeles in December.<\/p>\n

Their 32-year-old son, Nick Reiner, was indicted for two counts of first-degree murder and has pleaded not guilty.<\/a><\/p>\n

If he is convicted, he could face the death penalty. Prosecutors have not yet indicated whether they will pursue capital punishment.<\/p>\n

Jake and Nick\u2019s sister, Romy Reiner, 28, lived across the street from her parents, and discovered the body of her father.<\/p>\n

Speaking to KABC in Los Angeles<\/a>, Jake Reiner, 35, recalled the moment he heard from his sister after she called 911.<\/p>\n

\u201cRomy told me our dad was dead, and then she said, \u2018I can\u2019t find mom,\u2019\u201d Reiner said. \u201cI immediately went into shock.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur parents had unconditional love for all three of us. I will never understand. I don\u2019t care how it is explained to me, I don\u2019t care what facts come out, I will never understand why this happened,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Nick Reiner pictured during his arraignment in Los Angeles county superior court\u00a0in February. Photograph: Chris Torres\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Reiner said he had lost everyone in his family but his sister.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Nick]\u2019s in jail. It\u2019s like, I physically lost my parents, and then Nick was arrested, now it\u2019s just me and Romy, and we have to navigate this by ourselves essentially,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it manifests into anger. It manifests into rage, into how unfair this was, how I didn\u2019t get a say in what happened. I didn\u2019t get to stop it from happening. I had no choice in the matter. I just have to accept the reality of it, and to me, that is just one of the most infuriating parts of all of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reiner told KABC he had not spoken with his brother and declined to say whether he would want to in the future.<\/p>\n

He said his parents \u201cnever stopped helping\u201d Nick through his reported struggles with addiction and mental health. The 2015 film Being Charlie, which Nick wrote and Rob directed, was loosely based on Nick\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

Reiner added: \u201cThe worst kind of grief is your own because you\u2019re the one living through it, and so, just because I lost my parents in the way that I did, it doesn\u2019t mean that you losing a loved one in some other way is not also devastating.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t compare it, because it\u2019s what you\u2019re going through, and there are a lot of people out there that are living through that, and I think for the first time in my life, I see them.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on to say that the eight months since the deaths had felt like \u201ceight years\u201d, adding: \u201cIt also feels like eight minutes because every moment that I wake up, I\u2019m reminded of my reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reiner wrote a Substack essay about his parents<\/a>\u2019 deaths in April, saying the situation was \u201calmost too impossible to process\u201d and \u201cmy living nightmare\u201d.<\/p>\n

Nick Reiner\u2019s pre-trial hearing for the murder charges is scheduled for 15 September. He has attempted to access $1.6m in a trust his parents set up for him as a child in order to pay his legal fees, but the trust\u2019s professional fiduciary and trustees have blocked him<\/a>, citing California\u2019s slayer statute, which prevents anyone from financially benefiting from the estate of a person they are accused of killing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jake Reiner has given his first interview since the killing of his parents, the film-maker Rob Reiner and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":828826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[88],"class_list":["post-828825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=828825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/828826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=828825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=828825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=828825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}