Massacred filmmaker Rob Reiner tried to help his troubled son in the years preceding the grisly deaths of him and his wife.
Nick Reiner, 32, has been arrested on a murder charge in the throat-slashing of his dad, 78, and his mother, Michele Singer Reiner, 68.
Much attention is now on the relationship between the legendary filmmaker and his son, who has suffered from addiction and mental health issues since he was a teen.
Nick co-wrote the 2015 film Being Charlie about their mutual struggles, and Rob directed the film.
The younger Reiner has said he experienced bouts of homelessness in three different states—Maine, New Jersey, and Texas—as a teenager. He said he ended up on the street because his parents forced him into rehab centers across the country against his wishes.
While promoting their joint project, the elder Reiner said he regretted listening to counselors more than he did to Nick’s own feelings. He said directing Being Charlie, which he said was the “most personal” of his long list of films, made him realize his own shortcomings as a father.
“When Nick would tell us that it wasn’t working for him, we wouldn’t listen,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “We were desperate, and because the people had diplomas on their wall, we listened to them when we should have been listening to our son.”
Michele felt the same.
“We were so influenced by these people,” she told the paper. “They would tell us he’s a liar, that he was trying to manipulate us. And we believed them.”
Rob described the film, which was filled with screaming matches but ended with a reconciliation between its main characters, as “cathartic” and “therapeutic” for him.
Nick, who was in his early 20s at the time of its release, never went into much detail about how the film made him feel. He said in a post-release Q&A that “sometimes” the filmmaking process would get “overwhelming for me.”
While Rob said he had gotten “so much closer” with Nick ahead of the project, his son, who appeared disengaged during the nearly decade-old Q&A after its premiere, did not appear nearly as enthusiastic about their work together.
Asked for his feelings, Nick said bluntly, “I really wasn’t sure I wanted to do this.”
Nick said at one point that collaborating with his dad was an “amazing experience,” but told NPR that it was not something he was seeking to do again.
Rob, meanwhile, was open to a future project—though IMDb shows no collabs came to fruition.
“He was the heart and soul of the film, and any time I would get an opportunity to work with him, I would do it, but I do understand him wanting to forge his own way,” Rob told NPR. “I do know what that’s about. I went through it, and he’s brilliant and talented, and he’s going to figure out his path.”
Nick revealed on a 2018 podcast that his drug-induced rampages were so violent, he was once “up for days on end” and destroyed his father’s guest house—punching a TV, a lamp, and more.
“Everything in the guest house got wrecked,” he told the Dopey podcast.
More recently, Rob may have referred to Nick as a “bad” child during a September interview. The father of four was asked by Piers Morgan which movie best embodied the legacy he wanted to leave behind.
The filmmaker then eerily responded, “Well, I mean, listen, people have their favorites. [It’s] the cliché, ‘We love all our children, even the bad ones.’” He then said the 1986 coming-of-age drama Stand By Me was his pick.
Family sources told TMZ that the Reiners were at their “wits’ end” with Nick by the time they were attacked.
“We’ve tried everything,” Michele reportedly said.
Others close to the family said they were not shocked to find out that Nick was allegedly behind his parents’ murder.
A longtime neighbor of the Reiners told the New York Post that this “is not the first time their son has been violent.”
“I know of another incident a few years back with Nick, but I won’t say more than that,” the neighbor told the paper. “I just never thought it would ever get to this point.”
The neighbor added, “Nick has had demons for the longest. It is such a nightmare. The whole thing is a tragedy.”
An ex-classmate of Nick’s told the Post she “instantly knew” that he was behind his parents’ slaying when their deaths were announced as a homicide.
The post Rob Reiner Tried to Help Troubled Son Before His Slaying appeared first on The Daily Beast.
