Tragedy
Jake Reiner Says Parents’ Deaths Have Left Him With ‘Rage’: ‘I Didn’t Get to Stop It’
Jake Reiner is opening up for the first time about the death of his parents, Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner, and the anger he says it has left him with.
“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,” Jake, 35, said in an interview with KABC on Thursday, August 27. “I didn’t get to stop it from happening. I had no choice in the matter. I just have to accept the reality of it. And to me, that is just one of the most infuriating parts of all of this,” he said.
In his first sit-down interview since December 14 — the day his Hollywood director father, 78, and his mother, 70, were stabbed to death in their Brentwood, California, home — the eldest child of Rob and Michele spoke about how the tragedy has changed his life.
“I gotta be honest. It’s been eight months. It feels like eight years at the same time. And it also feels like eight minutes because every moment that I wake up, I’m reminded of my reality,” Jake continued.
He said returning to his parents’ home where they had been killed was surreal, especially given his past as a journalist for a decade.
“As a reporter, I did it for 10 years, I came up on crime scenes all the time,” Jake said, “but when it’s your crime scene, a crime scene at your childhood home, it’s like the most surreal thing I’ve ever seen.”
The loss also meant losing another member of his immediate family. Jake’s younger brother, Nick Reiner, has been charged with two counts of murder. He is currently in jail.
“It’s like, I physically lost my parents, and then Nick was arrested. Now it’s just me and [my younger sister] Romy, and we have to navigate this by ourselves essentially,” Jake said.
Speaking about his brother Nick, who has dealt with substance abuse issues for years, Jake said his parents did whatever they could to help him.
“My parents had unconditional love for all three of us,” Jake said. “I can tell you they never stopped wanting to help him. They never stopped helping him.”
Despite his heartbreak, Jake said he knows his parents “loved” him and “are proud” of him.
On August 12, a grand jury indictment was unsealed, charging Nick, 32, with the murder of his parents, a Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office news release confirmed.
That same day, Nick pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder with the special circumstance allegations of multiple murders and murder by means of lying in wait. He also faces an allegation that he personally used a dangerous, deadly weapon — a knife — to execute the killings.
Nick is scheduled to appear in court for a pretrial hearing on September 15.
“I’ll never understand. I don’t care how it’s explained to me. I don’t care what facts come out. I will never understand why this happened,” Jake said.
