Nick Reiner Arrested for Killing Parents: Everything We Know About Rob Reiner and Michele Singer’s Son

Details about the horrific killing of famed actor and director Rob Reiner and his wife, the photographer Michele Singer, are still emerging, but police have made a shocking arrest: the couple’s 32-year-old son, Nick Reiner.

Nick was taken into custody Sunday night, Dec. 14, after his parents’ bodies were found at their home in the upscale Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood that afternoon. He was booked just after 5 a.m. on Monday, Dec. 15, according to online jail records. No official charges were listed, but Nick is being held on suspicion of felony murder, and his bail is currently set at $4 million. 

The circumstances surrounding the deaths of Reiner and Singer are still murky, but it is known that Nick had a complicated relationship with his parents and had long battled drug addiction. Nick was the couple’s second of three children, born after his brother Jake, and before his younger sister, Romy.

Not much is known about Nick’s childhood, but he first went to rehab at age 15. He spent much of his teenage years rotating in and out of facilities, seeking treatment for addiction to hard drugs, including heroin. In between stays, Nick was often homeless. 

“If I wanted to do it my way and not go to the programs they were suggesting, then I had to be homeless,” he told People in 2016, adding: “I was homeless in Maine. I was homeless in New Jersey. I was homeless in Texas. I spent nights on the street. I spent weeks on the street. It was not fun.”

Nick eventually got clean and completed his last rehab stay when he was 19. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times in 2015, Rob and Michele spoke about the challenges Nick faced in rehab and acknowledged their own shortsightedness regarding the efficacy of these programs for their son. 

“The program works for some people but it can’t work for everybody,” Rob said. “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.”
Editor’s picks

The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far

The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time

The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time

100 Best Movies of the 21st Century

Michele noted, “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.”

At the time, the Reiners were promoting a film they’d made together, Being Charlie. Nick and a fellow ex-addict, Matt Elisofon, co-wrote the script, while Reiner directed it. The semi-autobiographical film centered around the relationship between a troubled son battling addiction, Charlie (played by Nick Robinson), and his famous father, David (Cary Elwes), a noted actor now running for governor of California. In the film, Charlie is homeless at times, and it also features tense confrontations and fights between Charlie and David. 

Both father and son acknowledged that making Being Charlie offered some catharsis, but was also very difficult. In that L.A. Times interview, Nick admitted he wasn’t sure he wanted to make the film, while Rob said, “It was very, very hard going through it the first time, with these painful and difficult highs and lows. And then making the movie dredged it all up again.”

Dave Manheim, host of the Dopey podcast, which features lengthy conversations about recovery and substance abuse, interviewed Nick several times during the late 2010s. Manheim tells Rolling Stone that Nick was “very creative and talented and had his dreams,” but was also stuck in a very “classic Hollywood” situation: “You’re not only in the shadow of your incredibly talented and famous and charming father, but you’re also in the shadow of your incredibly talented, famous, and legendary grandfather [Carl Reiner]. Then all of a sudden, if you’re not that, what are you doing? It just creates a lot of pressure.”
Related Content
Rob Reiner’s Son Arrested After Allegedly Killing Parents
Trump Mocks Rob Reiner, Says He Was Killed Because of His ‘TDS’
Rob Reiner’s Activist Legacy Remembered by Barack Obama, Gavin Newsom, Nancy Pelosi
Rob Reiner Didn’t Just Make Movies. He Made Moments

Manheim remained in contact with Nick after the interviews and remembers him getting some recording equipment and tossing around ideas for a podcast. “Something with his grandfather before he died, but I don’t think any of that stuck,” Manheim says (Carl Reiner died in 2020). Eventually, Manheim lost touch with Nick around 2018. He says he texted Nick frequently to check in on him, but never received a response. 

Trending Stories

Rob Reiner, Legendary Director and Actor, and Wife Found Dead in Apparent Homicide
Trump Mocks Rob Reiner, Says He Was Killed Because of His ‘TDS’
Rob Reiner’s Son Arrested After Allegedly Killing Parents
Tate McRae: How a ‘Very Sensitive, Very Introverted’ Singer Became a Pop Superstar

“I don’t know how great his recovery was,” says Manheim, who was shocked and upset by the news, but still stressed how much he cared for Nick. “He never turned up in an arrest. He never turned up at a treatment. As far as I knew, he never turned up in a story with anybody in our [recovery] community, and our community is pretty far-reaching and wide. It was surprising.” 

One of Nick’s last known public appearances was in September at the Los Angeles premiere of Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. Nick was photographed on the red carpet alongside his parents, as well as his siblings.