Conan O’Brien is making rare remarks about the murders of Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner, which occurred the day after the couple and their son attended the comedian’s holiday party.
The When Harry Met Sally director, 78, and the 70-year-old photographer were fatally stabbed at their home on Dec 14. Their middle child Nick, 32, was charged two days later with two counts of first-degree murder, for which he pleaded not guilty last month.
“Very simply, we had a party, we invited our really good friends and then, the next day, this terrible thing happened,” O’Brien, 62, told The Hollywood Reporter in a story published this week.
The Emmy winner explained to the outlet that he’d opted against discussing the slayings on his podcast.
“Whatever difficulties my wife and I have experienced having our name attached to it are nothing compared to the scale of the tragedy for the family and the loss of Rob and Michele,” explained the Oscars host. “If you’re a known person, your name is going to get dragged into things sometimes, but it is not a hardship. There is only sadness that they’re gone.”
O’Brien publicly broke his silence on the Reiner murders during an extensive interview with The New Yorker last month, explaining that he’d been “in shock for quite a while afterward. … There’s no other word for it.”
Reports of Nick’s disturbing behaviour at O’Brien’s quickly surfaced in the wake of the killings, with TMZ reporting that he and his father got into a “very loud argument” at the party.
One insider told People that Nick was “freaking everyone out [and] acting crazy”
A source at the time also told NBC News that Nick “storm[ed] off” after interrupting a conversation involving Bill Hader.
Nick has reportedly been diagnosed with either schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, with sources telling TMZ that a recent shift in medication made him “erratic and dangerous” in the run-up to the murders. - New York Daily News/Tribune News Service
