Conan O'Brien breaks silence over killing of Rob and Michele Reiner after his holiday party

Hours earlier filmmaking fable Rob Reiner and his woman Michele were recovered stabbed to decease successful their Brentwood home, they attended a vacation enactment astatine Conan O’Brien’s house.

Now, 2 months aft the tragedy, the comedian has breached his soundlessness astir the decease of his bully friends.

“To person that acquisition of saying bully nighttime to idiosyncratic and having them permission and past find retired the adjacent time that they’re gone ... I deliberation I was successful daze for rather a portion afterward,” O’Brien said successful an interrogation for “The New Yorker Radio Hour” podcast. “I mean, there’s nary different connection for it. It’s conscionable precise — it’s truthful awful. It’s conscionable truthful awful.”

As big of the Dec. 13 party, O’Brien was among the past radical to spot the Reiners alive. Their 32-year-old son, Nick, was arrested the pursuing nighttime and charged with murdering his parents. Two sources who attended the enactment described witnessing a large verbal speech betwixt Nick Reiner and his parents.

In an interrogation published Friday, O’Brien said helium and his woman were precise adjacent with the couple, describing them arsenic “just specified beauteous people.”

O’Brien praised Rob Reiner’s endowment arsenic a manager and his tireless advocacy efforts. The “When Harry Met Sally ...” manager was a salient Democratic donor, noted professional of President Trump and a champion for causes specified arsenic aboriginal puerility acquisition and cheery marriage.

“I deliberation astir however Rob felt astir things that are happening successful the country, however progressive helium was, however overmuch helium enactment himself retired determination — and to person that dependable spell quiescent successful an instant is inactive hard for maine to comprehend,” O’Brien told The New Yorker.

O’Brien said helium considers Reiner “one of the greats” fixed his awesome way grounds of directing a bid of blockbuster movies.

“To marque 7 — in, like, a nine-year, 10-year, 11-year play — is insanity,” O’Brien said. “With ‘Spinal Tap’ alone, if that’d been the lone happening helium ever did, helium influenced my procreation enormously.”

O’Brien fondly recalled archetypal watching the stone mockumentary “This is Spinal Tap” successful college, calling it a “splitting-the-atom moment.”

The brace were not lone friends, but besides collaborators. Reiner was a impermanent connected a 1999 occurrence of “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” and besides appeared connected episodes of O’Brien’s podcast, “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend,” successful 2023 and 2025.

Authorities allege Nick Reiner fatally stabbed his 78-year-old begetter and 70-year-old parent astatine their Brentwood location sometime successful the aboriginal greeting hours of Dec. 14. The couple’s bodies were discovered successful the maestro chamber by their girl astir 12 hours later, and Nick Reiner was arrested that nighttime successful South L.A. by Los Angeles police.

Nick Reiner was charged with 2 counts of first-degree execution connected Dec. 16 and has yet to participate a plea. In January, his arraignment was postponed to Monday aft his lawyer, famed defence lawyer Alan Jackson, stepped down and was replaced by a nationalist defender.

Nick Reiner has a past of struggles with intelligence wellness and substance use. It is unclear however prominently those struggles volition diagnostic successful transgression proceedings.

Times unit writers James Queally and Richard Winton contributed to this report.