Conan O’Brien is opening up about Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner‘s death after seeing them at his holiday party the night before the couple was found dead in their home.
In a new interview, the comedian talked about the Reiners, who were murdered in their home and found on December 14.
“I knew Rob and Michele, and then increasingly got closer and closer to them, and I was seeing them a lot. My wife and I were seeing them a lot, and they were so — they were just such lovely people,” O’Brien told The New Yorker. “And to have that experience of saying good night to somebody and having them leave and then find out the next day that they’re gone. … I think I was in shock for quite a while afterward. I mean, there’s no other word for it. It’s just very — it’s so awful. It’s just so awful.”
Nick Reiner, Rob and Michele’s son, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder. The Being Charlie co-writer is expected to enter a plea on Monday, February 23.
O’Brien reflected on the loss of Rob Reiner during the turbulent political times, saying, “I think about how Rob felt about things that are happening in the country, how involved he was, how much he put himself out there—and to have that voice go quiet in an instant is still hard for me to comprehend.”
The Oscars host went on to praise Rob Reiner as a director for many “classics,” adding, “With Spinal Tap alone, if that’d been the only thing he ever did, he influenced my generation enormously. Spinal Tap—when it came out, I was in college, and it was like a splitting-the-atom moment. You have those moments where you see something truly remarkable.”