Rob Reiner took his son, Nick Reiner, to Conan O’Brien’s Dec. 13 Christmas party to “keep an eye on him”—just a day before the elder Reiner and his wife were killed.
The film director and his wife, Michele, asked if they could bring him to the occasion out of concern for their son, sources told Rolling Stone. At the party, Nick, 32, exhibited “anti-social behavior,” including staring at people, according to the outlet. Reiner and his son got into a “very loud argument," according to TMZ.
The following day, Reiner, 78, and his wife, 68, were found dead in their Los Angeles home in what investigators have called “an apparent homicide.“ Nick Reiner remains in custody without bail.
One of the Reiners’ neighbors told the New York Post that “Nick has had demons for the longest. It is such a nightmare. The whole thing is a tragedy.”
Nick Reiner struggled with drug addiction and mental health issues since he was about 14 years old.
His father had described the ordeal of Nick going to 18 rehabilitation facilities and being homeless in three states.
“When Nick would tell us that it wasn’t working for him, we wouldn’t listen,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “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.”
Reiner further explained to People Magazine in 2016: “You kind of throw yourself at the mercy of a lot of people who are supposed experts. They’ll all tell you these things, but they don’t take into account your child. And you should know your child better than they do anyway. That is something I learned as we went along.”
