Jake Reiner has opened up about the violent deaths of his parents, Rob and Michele Reiner, revealing the moment he learned of their deaths, while memorializing the Hollywood couple as “the center of my life” and “the standard of what a successful relationship looks like.”
“Nothing can prepare you for what it feels like to lose both parents instantly at the same time. It’s too devastating to comprehend. I still wake up every morning having to convince myself that, no, it’s not a dream. This truly is my living nightmare,” Reiner said in an emotional essay published Friday.
Jake Reiner said he was at a memorial for a friend who died about two months earlier when his sister, Romy Reiner, called him on Dec. 14 to tell him their father was dead. Minutes later, she called again to say their mother was dead too.
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The couple’s youngest son, Nick Reiner, was arrested a short time later in connection with their stabbing deaths.
“The 45-minute Lyft ride from downtown to the west side was unendurable. My world, as I knew it, had collapsed. I was in a trance. The only thing I could focus on was that I needed to get to my childhood home. I needed to get to my sister. I needed to figure out what the hell just happened,” Jake Reiner recalled.
Reiner did not divulge his reaction to news of his brother’s arrest, only saying that he and his sister lost “more than half of our family that night” and that having his brother at the center makes it “almost too impossible to process.”
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“When you are not living through a tragedy the specific way Romy and I are, it’s hard to wrap your head around just how horrific this has been. Because they weren’t your parents, it might be easier to move forward or even forget for a moment about what happened that day, but for us, it’s every single day,” he wrote.
“My goal in writing this piece is to offer some insight. Not only to what I lost but also to celebrate what my parents meant to me,” he continued, adding that he won’t share some parts of his family’s story as a way to “protect what little remains of something that was taken from us.”
While sharing old family photos of himself with his late parents, Reiner noted his closeness to them and emotional reliance on them. He praised his mother’s sense of humor, their joint love of musicals, and her support for him as he transitioned into college and adulthood.
“Her support for me never wavered, and I always felt how much she loved me. I feel her presence everywhere, every single day. I miss her so much,” he wrote.
His father was his “hero,” he wrote, who, like his mom, “supported me in whatever I wanted to do with my life.”
He recalled their shared love of baseball, his father’s astute relationship advice, and his ability to talk with him “about anything.”
“A lot of people don’t have the luxury of having the best parents, the best mom, or the best dad, but I did. The love they have for me, my brother, and my sister is truly unconditional. And the love they have for each other in their marriage is something I always looked up to as the standard of what a successful relationship looks like,” he wrote.
In a separate post on his Instagram account Friday, Reiner thanked those who have supported him through his immense grief and said he considers himself lucky to have had 34 years with his parents.
Nick Reiner has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, which carry a potential life sentence.
