Rob Reiner’s daughter said she saw him just a day earlier at a family gathering, before he and his wife were found murdered at their Los Angeles home.
“I don’t know what to say. I’m in shock,” Tracy Reiner, the director’s adopted daughter from his marriage to ex-wife Penny Marshall, told NBC News. “I came from the greatest family ever,” she added.
Reiner, 78, and his wife, producer Michele Singer Reiner, 68, were found dead at their home on Sunday, a source confirmed to the Daily Beast. According to NBC News, the couple appeared to have died from stab wounds.
The Oscar-winning actor and his wife shared three children—Jake, 34, Nick, 32, and Romy Reiner, 28. A source told the Daily Beast that the couple was discovered by their youngest daughter.
“It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner. We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time,” the family said in a statement.
According to TMZ, the couple’s middle child, Nick, is now in custody with his bail set at $4 million.
Reiner—known for This Is Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally…, and A Few Good Men, as well as the 2015 film Being Charlie, which was co-written by his son Nick and which focused on Nick’s struggles with addiction—met his second wife, Michele, while she was working as a photographer on When Harry Met Sally… The two married in 1989.
“I met her while we were making the film, and I changed the ending,” Reiner said in an interview, explaining that meeting his wife on set helped inspire the film’s happy ending.
Many in Hollywood and beyond have been paying their respects to the couple and sending prayers to the family.
“I loved Rob. He was brilliant and kind, a man who made films of every genre to challenge himself as an artist,” Kathy Bates, who won a Best Actress Oscar for her role as Annie Wilkes in Reiner’s 1990 psychological thriller Misery, told The Hollywood Reporter.
“Our ONLY focus and care right now is for their children and immediate families, and we will offer all support possible to help them,” Christopher Guest, who co-wrote and starred in This Is Spinal Tap, wrote in a joint statement with his wife, Jamie Lee Curtis.
“Beneath all of the stories he produced was a deep belief in the goodness of people—and a lifelong commitment to putting that belief into action,” former president Barack Obama wrote on X.
“Rob will be remembered for his remarkable filmography and for his extraordinary contribution to humanity,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement.
