Feb. 20, 2026, 5:54 p.m. ET
Conan O’Brien has broken his silence about the deaths of his good friends, director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner.
The venerated Hollywood couple’s Dec. 14 killing occurred the morning after they attended a holiday party at O’Brien’s Los Angeles house.
O’Brien, 62, who is hosting the March 15 Academy Awards, addressed the deeply personal loss in a Feb. 20 New Yorker interview.
“They were just such lovely people,” said O’Brien. “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. It’s just very – it’s so awful. It’s just so awful.”
The couple’s son Nick Reiner, 32, is charged with the double murder of his parents and is due in Los Angeles Superior Court for an arraignment hearing on Monday, Feb. 23.
O’Brien said that social activist Rob Reiner’s voice is noticeably missing from the national discourse.
“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,” said O’Brien. “And to have that voice go quiet in an instant is still hard for me to comprehend.”
Conan O’Brien called Rob Reiner’s ‘Spinal Tap’ truly ‘remarkable’
Conan O’Brien and his wife, Liza, became “increasingly” closer to the Reiners over the years. O’Brien was already a huge fan of Reiner, who directed classic films like “Spinal Tap,” “A Few Good Men” and “When Harry Met Sally.”
O’Brien said he keeps mulling over Reiner’s impressive body of work.
“I think it’s seven movies that Rob Reiner made, in quick succession, that are classics. Now, if you can make one great movie, that’s impressive. It’s an almost impossible feat. To make two means that you’re one of the greats. To make seven – in, like, a nine-year, 10-year, 11-year period – is insanity.”
Even creating the 1984 rockumentary “Spinal Tap,” which Reiner directed, wrote and starred in, was a seminal achievement.
“If that’d been the only thing (Reiner) ever did, he influenced my generation enormously,” said O’Brien, adding that when “Spinal Tap” came out, “I was in college, and it was like a splitting-the-atom moment. You have those moments where you see something truly remarkable.”
Conan O’Brien praises actress Catherine O’Hara following her death
O’Brien put actress Catherine O’Hara, who died at 71 on Jan. 30, in the same category of greatness as Reiner.
“Who’s a funnier performer than Catherine O’Hara?” said O’Brien. “And what people didn’t get to experience personally was, she is – she was, I’m still saying ‘is’ – she’s possibly the nicest person I’ve ever met. Just glowed.”
