{"id":883098,"date":"2026-10-15T11:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T11:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/883098\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T11:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T11:24:11","slug":"billy-crystal-distrusts-god-after-palisades-fire-rob-reiner-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/883098\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Crystal distrusts God after Palisades fire, Rob Reiner death"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Billy Crystal no longer trusts God. <\/p>\n

Following the 2025 loss of his home in the Pacific Palisades wildfires and the killing of his longtime collaborator, Rob Reiner, the 78-year-old actor has a newfound skepticism, he told \u201cCBS Sunday Morning<\/a>\u201d correspondent Tracy Smith in an interview that aired last weekend. <\/p>\n

Smith asked Crystal if he had been talking to God over these last couple of years, given that he recounted his conversations with God in his 2004 Tony Award-winning play \u201c700 Sundays\u201d and he is now promoting his one-man Broadway show, \u201c860,\u201d which premieres Oct. 21 at the Imperial Theatre in New York City.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, \u2018cause I don\u2019t trust him,\u201d Crystal responded. \u201cToo many bad things have happened. The Earth is in bad shape. This is a weird, scary time, so no. Not anymore.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

This drastic change of faith comes after Crystal and his wife Janice Crystal (n\u00e9e Goldfinger) lost their 1930s ranch house in the Palisades wildfire in January 2025. The couple, who have been married since 1970, purchased the stucco home in 1979 to raise their daughters Jenny, now 53, and Lindsay, 48.<\/p>\n

Not much remained after the blazing devastation, save for some rocks with uplifting engraved words like \u201cwelcome,\u201d \u201cpatience\u201d and \u201cdream\u201d that the family laid around the garden decades prior, he shared with People<\/a> in a cover story published online Wednesday. <\/p>\n

\u201cLindsay found the \u2018laughter\u2019 rock,\u201d Crystal said. \u201cSo the fact that that was the first thing [we found], we\u2019ll be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Palisades fire inspired \u201c860,\u201d which is titled after his home address and touches on themes of luck and fate. <\/p>\n

\u201cI started thinking about this in a way that I think was separating me from the pain of what was happening,\u201d Crystal told the outlet. \u201cIt was healing me at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

He underscores that the story is not about the fire itself, rather a journey that highlights resilience, laughter and love and \u201cfacing things you never thought were possible,\u201d he shared.<\/p>\n

The New York born-and-bred comedian first opened up about personal pain in \u201c700 Sundays,\u201d his autobiographical one-man play that touched on the death of his father, who died of a heart attack when Crystal was 15. The production won the Tony Award for special theatrical event.<\/p>\n

Reiner and Crystal met in 1976 on the set of the CBS sitcom \u201cAll in the Family\u201d and became fast friends. Encouragement from his longtime confidante and collaborator helped the comedian write about the loss of his beloved home before Reiner\u2019s tragic killing in December 2025<\/a> alongside his wife, Michele, in Brentwood.<\/p>\n

The \u201cMonsters, Inc.\u201d voice actor called their chemistry \u201cundefinable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew it from the first time we met. I knew it from that first week: \u2018This is going to be a forever thing, I just know it,\u2019\u201d Crystal told People. \u201cWe laughed. We talked about all kinds of things. We were always interested in what each other was doing and grateful that we both were getting chances to do something even as we went our separate ways in projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

The actor also shared that he was not the first choice when it came to the role of Harry in \u201cWhen Harry Met Sally\u2026,\u201d but after considering other actors \u2014 among them Albert Brooks, Tom Hanks and Michael Keaton \u2014 Reiner approached Crystal as if it were a scene from the 1989 romantic comedy itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne day the call came, and he was almost upset by saying, \u2018I always knew it was you,\u2019\u201d Crystal said. <\/p>\n

In preparing for the premiere of \u201c860,\u201d which runs until Jan. 3, Crystal recalled a brief moment where he forgot Reiner was gone. <\/p>\n

\u201cI ran upstairs to the dressing room, and my first thought was: \u2018I got to call Rob and tell him,\u2019\u201d Crystal said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I don\u2019t want that to keep happening or I do want it to keep happening.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Billy Crystal no longer trusts God. Following the 2025 loss of his home in the Pacific Palisades wildfires…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":883099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[38257,174474,88,88688,134829,2976,25402,60727,290743,54204,370732,8229,119924,175479,370731,1740],"class_list":["post-883098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-actor","tag-billy-crystal","tag-entertainment","tag-first-thing","tag-god","tag-home","tag-killing","tag-last-couple","tag-laughter","tag-lindsay","tag-longtime-collaborator","tag-loss","tag-palisades-fire","tag-reiner","tag-rob-reiner-death","tag-rock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883098","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=883098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/883099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=883098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=883098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=883098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}