Conan O’Brien has finally weighed in on the deaths of friends Rob and Michele Reiner after they famously attended his annual Christmas party in Los Angeles the night before their murders on Dec. 14, 2025.
“It’s just so awful,” he told the New Yorker in a newly published interview.
“And 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.”
“I knew Rob and Michele, and then increasingly got closer and closer to them, and I was seeing them a lot,” he shared.
“My wife and I were seeing them a lot, and they were so—they were just such lovely people. 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.”
Rob and Michele’s daughter, Romy, found the couple stabbed to death in their home on Dec. 14. Rob was 78 and Michele was 70.
The aspiring director faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty.
He was being medicated for diagnosed schizophrenia; however, the medication had the effect of making him “out of his head.” Nick also has a long history of drug addiction.
Nick was scheduled to be arraigned last month. However, his lawyer — famed criminal defense attorney Alan Jackson — quit the case just before the court hearing on Jan. 7. The arraignment has been rescheduled for Monday.
Jackson later discussed his reasons for dropping the case.
“That’s a confidential communication between a lot of folks that I’m not willing to disclose,” he told Billy Bush during a January appearance on the “Hot Mic” podcast.
When Bush asked if it had to do with money, Jackson responded, “You can’t say that something happened with the retainer because I’ve never said that.”
“Obviously, something happened with my ability, and my team’s ability, to continue the representation, but I don’t want you, your audience or anybody else to start speculating as to what that might be,” he added. “I have not said a word about it.”
Jackson continued, “Once I’m done, I’m done. I’ve withdrawn.”