Christmas cheer was in ample supply on Saturday night at Conan O’Brien’s holiday party – and beloved director Rob Reiner was on fine form.
Accompanied by his wife of over 35 years, Michele, and their son Nick, 32, the Oscar-nominated Reiner held court inside the Pacific Palisades mansion, chatting happily with friends Larry David and Sarah Silverman.
Laughter was ringing through the night as their comedian host served his famous holiday ham, and a who’s who of Hollywood raised a festive glass: Tom Hanks, Adam Sandler and Martin Short have all in previous years attended the much-anticipated bash.
It seemed, a guest told the Daily Mail, like the gregarious 78-year-old had not a care in the world.
‘Rob was in such a great mood, he was with all of his friends,’ the guest said. ‘He and Michele stayed late talking to everyone, before making their way home around midnight.’
But behind the smile, Reiner was in turmoil – turmoil which had long simmered, but finally erupted over Thanksgiving.
Nick had moved back in with his parents in recent weeks, Deadline reported. The young man, who had, since a teenager, struggled with drug addiction and homelessness, was once again spiraling.
One family source told TMZ that Rob and Michele were ‘at their wits’ end’ about their troubled son, and at some point on Saturday night he had a blazing row with his father, inside O’Brien’s estate. Other guests overheard the commotion, but brushed it off.
On Sunday afternoon, the couple was found dead in their Brentwood home, stabbed. Nick was taken into custody that evening and charged with murder on Monday.
And, while Reiner – an actor before directing – was putting on a brave face at the Saturday soiree, hours before he was killed, sources have told the Daily Mail that the family’s fresh turmoil had begun many weeks ago, culminating in a Thanksgiving blowout.
‘There was some sort of fight on Thanksgiving weekend,’ said a family friend, who has known Reiner for over 50 years.
‘I don’t know if it was Friday or Saturday, but Michele was really bothered by that. She said that it was awful between Rob and Nick, and it was the same ‘around and around’ that they always had. They were constantly butting heads.’
There was a sign of tension brewing in September, too, when the family was photographed together for the last time: Nick scowling beside his sister Romy, 28, and 34-year-old brother Jake, at the premiere of their father’s latest film, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. In every frame, Nick is looking daggers at the camera.
In September 2024, the family assembled in Las Vegas for a steak dinner: all are smiling happily except Nick, who glares at the camera with undisguised contempt.
But perhaps his siblings and parents were accustomed to his ways.
Nick, who first went to rehab at the age of 15, was perennially tormented, sources claimed.
While Romy was carving out her own successful acting career and former journalist Jake was now writing his own screenplays, Nick really resented his dad, a source told Page Six, adding that he felt overshadowed by his multitalented father and grandfather.
Carl Reiner is remembered as a Hollywood legend: the man who created The Dick Van Dyke Show, championed Steve Martin’s career, and acted in the Ocean’s Eleven series.
Instead of being proud of his family, Nick, the source said, ‘hated himself for not being as talented, prolific or beloved as his dad or grandad.’
Reiner tried repeatedly to bring his son on side.
He and Nick worked together on a 2015 film, Being Charlie. Reiner directed, and Nick co-wrote the semi-autobiographical tale of a successful actor with political ambitions and a son addicted to drugs.
In interviews to promote the project, they described the process as painful but cathartic.
Yet Nick was already stressing how he wanted to stand on his own two feet.
‘I think for now, it’s best for me at least to be sort of independent,’ he said, when asked if he would work with his father again. ‘But that’s not to say I didn’t have an amazing experience.’
Reiner added: ‘He was the heart and soul of the film, and any time I would get an opportunity to work with him I would do it, but I do understand him wanting to forge his own way.
‘I do know what that’s about – I went through it – and he’s brilliant and talented and he’s going to figure out his path.’
That path, it’s now clear, was profoundly complicated.
In 2016, Nick told People magazine: ‘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. If I wanted to do it my way and not go to the programs they were suggesting, then I had to be homeless.’
In 2018, he described how he moved back into his parents’ home once more, and destroyed the place while ‘totally spun out on uppers – coke and something else.’
‘I started punching out some things in my guest house,’ he told a podcast, adding that he ‘punched the TV’ and then ‘went over to the lamp.’
‘Everything in the guest house got wrecked,’ he said.
Reiner and his wife tried everything – therapists, rehab, home stays – but Nick kept on relapsing. Hours after Nick’s arrest, photos showed an overflowing ashtray on the back porch of the family’s Brentwood home.
And less than two miles away from Brentwood, at Conan O’Brien’s home, the cleanup from the party was continuing, as the murder scene remained locked down.
Friends told the Daily Mail they were stunned at the ‘unfathomable’ deaths – even though they had subtle hints that all was not well.
‘Rob was friends with everyone and the nicest guy in the room,’ a source said. ‘He wore his heart on his sleeve, along with Michele, so it pained them immensely that the wonderful life they had was with its cracks, and those cracks were from Nick and his substance and mental illness issues.
‘You’d never know it, as they dealt with it with as much grace as possible and never burdened their friends with it – just occasionally saying they were looking to get him help.
‘They would think of anything to do to help Nick, and once things seemed to be working, something would change and they would be at square one all over again.
‘It was a revolving circle that they couldn’t get out of.’
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