Listen to this article
Estimated 3 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
For Jake Reiner, ever since Dec. 14, 2025, time has moved both excruciatingly slowly and impossibly fast.
“It’s been eight months. It feels like eight years at the same time, and it also feels like eight minutes,” he told KABC-TV’s Mark Cota-Robles in his first sit-down interview since his parents, Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner, were found fatally stabbed in their Los Angeles home that Sunday afternoon. Hours later, the couple’s 32-year-old son, Nick Reiner, was arrested and later charged with murder in their deaths.
“Every moment that I wake up, I’m reminded of my reality and you’re living through that every single day,” Jake said.
In the interview, which was released on Thursday, he recalled getting a call that day from his younger sister, Romy, who had made the discovery.
“Romy told me that our dad was dead and then she said, I can’t find mom,” he told Cota-Robles in the hour-long interview. “I immediately went into shock.”
Nick was formally indicted on July 20 on two counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of Rob Reiner, a prolific Hollywood filmmaker, actor and political activist, and his wife, Michele, a photographer and producer. He pleaded not guilty.
In the indictment, unsealed on Aug. 12, the LA County grand jury alleged that Nick, who had a long documented history of mental health challenges and struggles with addiction, was lying in wait before attacking his parents.
In 2016, Rob and Nick Reiner released a film they worked on together called Being Charlie, inspired by Nick’s struggles with addiction. The film tells the story of a rebellious, drug-addicted teenage son of an actor-turned-politician father, who falls in love with a fellow addict.
At the time, Rob told the media that the film was “by far the most personal thing that I’ve ever done,” and that filming the movie brought him closer to his son.
In Thursday’s interview, when asked about previously describing the aftermath of the killings as losing half of his family — including Nick — Jake doubled down, while seemingly struggling to find the right words.
“I mean he’s in jail so, you know it’s — it’s like I physically lost my parents and then Nick was arrested and it’s like, no it’s just me and Romy,” he said.
He also addressed the complicated feelings he now has toward his younger brother, saying he will “never understand why this happened.”
“For me, it manifests into anger, it manifests into rage, into how unfair this was, how I didn’t get a say in what happened,” he said. “I didn’t get to stop it from happening. I had no choice in the matter, and I just have to accept the reality of it. And to me, that’s one of the most infuriating parts of all of this.”
