Before Nick Reiner was arrested in connection to his parents Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner’s deaths, their son had been candid about how addiction contributed to their complicated relationship over the years.
Rob and Michele, who wed in 1989, shared three children: Jake, Nick and Romy. (Rob also adopted ex-wife Penny Marshall‘s daughter, Tracy.)
Nick started to struggle with drug use as a teenager, leading to his first rehab stint at age 15. After several relapses and treatment stints, Nick began to live on the street.
“I was homeless in Maine. I was homeless in New Jersey. I was homeless in Texas,” Nick told People in 2016. “I spent nights on the street. I spent weeks on the street. It was not fun. “If I wanted to do it my way and not go to the programs they were suggesting, then I had to be homeless.”
After getting clean, Nick used his experience as inspiration for the 2015 film: Being Charlie. The movie, which Nick cowrote, was directed by Rob and followed the ups and downs of a family dealing with a son’s addiction. Cary Elwes played the father and Nick Robinson portrayed the son in the autobiographical project.
Rob and Nick’s own dynamic was called into question when they were promoting the film in 2016. While Rob referred to the experience of making Being Charlie as “therapeutic,” Nick chose not to respond to a question about the status of their relationship at that time.
“There were disagreements,” Rob told the crowd at an event for the move. ”At times it was really rough [working on the film.” Nick, for his part, admitted, “Sometimes it would get overwhelming for me. I really wasn’t sure I wanted to do this.”
Rob noted that his relationship with Nick had changed for the better, adding, “To be honest, by the time we got to the point of making the movie … our relationship had gotten so much closer.”
In December 2025, news broke that Rob and Michele were found dead “from apparent stab wounds.” Us Weekly subsequently confirmed that Nick was arrested on a murder charge.
“It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner,” a spokesperson for the family said in a statement to Variety at the time. “We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time.”
Keep scrolling for everything Nick and Rob shared about their complicated relationship over the years:
Nick Reiner Says He Could Have ‘Died’ When He Was Homeless
While promoting Being Charlie in 2015, Nick revealed how living on the streets shaped him, telling People, “When I was out there, I could’ve died. It’s all luck. There were a lot of dark years there.”
Nick recalled 17 visits to rehab before he was able to get clean.
“That made me who I am now, having to deal with that stuff,” he told the outlet. “I met crazy great people there, so out of my element. Now, I’ve been home for a really long time, and I’ve sort of gotten acclimated back to being in L.A. and being around my family.”
Rob Reiner’s Perspective Once Changed on Nick’s Struggles
“It was very, very hard going through it the first time, with these painful and difficult highs and lows,” the director told the LA Times in 2016. “And then making the movie dredged it all up again.”
Rob explained that rehab “works for some people but it can’t work for everybody.”
Rob Reiner Tried to Make Amends to Nick
Rob and Michele expressed regret about not listening to their son amid his addiction struggles.
“When Nick would tell us that it wasn’t working for him, we wouldn’t listen,” Rob told LA Times about offering his son an apology after their ups and downs. “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, who was also at the event in honor of Being Charlie, added during the joint interview, “We were so influenced by these people. They would tell us he’s a liar, that he was trying to manipulate us. And we believed them.”
The Hollywood Reporter noted at the time that Nick didn’t say much as his film was being honored. He later broke down how he chose to get clean because he was “sick of it.”
“I come from a nice family. I’m not supposed to be out there on the streets and in homeless shelters doing all these f*****-up things,” he explained about the autobiographical project.
Nick Reiner Struggled to Bond With Dad Rob as a Kid
Nick said during a Build Series interview in 2016 that he didn’t really bond with his dad until he was an adult.
“We didn’t bond a lot as a kid, like he really liked baseball, I like basketball, and he could watch that with my brother, but baseball,” he recalled ie. “I think the bonding [on the set of Being Charlie] came not from the story itself, but from the fact that we were working on a movie together, and I could see him and his … I would think in the form that he could express himself the best, which is making movies, because he has so much experience, and so seeing that sort of turned me around to be like, ‘OK, I should probably shut up and listen to him, because he knows a lot more about this.’”
Nick continued: “‘He knows, I don’t know anything, so I’ll learn whatever he has to teach me.’ … When I saw him do that, and it was something that I’m interested in, I was like, ‘Wow, like, he really knows a lot, and it made me feel closer to him and be like, ‘Yeah.’”
How Rob and Nick Reiner Tried to Get to a Better Place as Father and Son
Rob, meanwhile, recalled deferring to Nick while working on Being Charlie — and how the experience made him a better father.
“The whole process for me, I can just speak for myself, it did make me understand him a lot more, and I think it made me a better father,” he mentioned at the Build Series event. “Hopefully it did. I don’t know.”
