Conan O’Brien is speaking publicly for the first time about the deaths of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, after the couple was found dead in their Los Angeles home.
On Friday (Feb. 20), O’Brien reflected on the shock of seeing them at his holiday party the night before they were killed.
“I knew Rob and Michele, and then increasingly got closer and closer to them, and I was seeing them a lot,” the 62-year-old former late-night host told The New Yorker.
“My wife and I were seeing them a lot, and they were so — they were just such lovely people,” O’Brien continued.
READ MORE: Who Is Nick Reiner? Inside the Troubled Life of Rob Reiner’s Son After Parents’ Deaths
“And to have that experience of saying goodnight to somebody and having them leave and then find out the next day that they’re gone,” he said, adding that he was “in shock for quite a while afterward.”
“There’s no other word for it,” O’Brien said. “It’s just very — it’s so awful. It’s just so awful.”
The Night Before
Rob and Michele attended O’Brien’s Christmas party in December 2025. According to TMZ, Rob reportedly got into a loud argument with his son, Nick Reiner, during the event. The following day, Rob and Michele were found dead in their Brentwood home.
Later that night, Nick, 32, was arrested and held without bail. He was formally charged days later with two counts of first-degree murder.
Processing the Loss
O’Brien said tragedies like this force a sudden confrontation with mortality.
READ MORE: Rob + Michele Reiner’s Deaths: What Their Son Nick’s Past May Reveal
“It is something you don’t think about — if you’re lucky, you don’t think about it for the first couple of decades of your life — and then it’s people saying, ‘Did you hear?’ And you walk around concussed for a week,” he said.
The Ongoing Case
Nick made his first court appearance last month but did not enter a plea, with his attorney saying it was “too early” in the process.
Michael Loccisano, Getty Images
After his attorney, Alan Jackson, later stepped away from the case, Nick’s arraignment was postponed. He is expected to enter a plea at a Feb. 23 hearing.
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