Conan O’Brien opens up about the devastating loss of Rob and Michele Reiner

Conan O’Brien has spoken publicly for the first time about the shocking deaths of filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, calling the tragedy “awful” and describing how it left him in disbelief.

The When Harry Met Sally director and his photographer-producer wife attended O’Brien’s holiday party in Los Angeles on December 13, 2025, along with their son, Nick, just hours before the couple was found dead at their home. 

Nick Reiner was later arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

O’Brien, 62, told The New Yorker he has struggled to process the devastating news. 

“I knew Rob and Michele, and then increasingly got closer and closer to them. We [he and his wife, Liza Powel O’Brien] were seeing them a lot,” he said.

“They were just such lovely people. And to have that experience of saying good night to somebody and having them leave and then find out the next day that they’re gone... I think I was in shock for quite a while afterward. I mean, there’s no other word for it,” he continued. 

“It’s just so awful. And I think about how Rob felt about things that are happening in the country, how involved he was, how much he put himself out there, and to have that voice go quiet in an instant is still hard for me to comprehend.”

O’Brien also paid tribute to Rob Reiner’s legendary career, which included classics like When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men, Spinal Tap, and The Princess Bride. “It’s an almost impossible feat to make seven movies in roughly a decade that are all classics,” he said. 

“With Spinal Tap alone, if that’d been the only thing he ever did, he influenced my generation enormously. Spinal Tap—when it came out, I was in college, and it was like a splitting-the-atom moment.”

According to reports, Rob and Nick reportedly had a heated argument during O’Brien’s holiday party. 

One source told People: “Nick was freaking everyone out, acting crazy, kept asking people if they were famous.” TMZ reported that the Reiners left the party following the altercation.