Who is Nick Reiner, the son of Rob and Michele Reiner?

CNN
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When Nick Reiner was photographed with his family at the Los Angeles premiere of his father’s comedy musical, “Spinal Tap II,” in September, he wasn’t smiling.

Instead, the son of legendary Hollywood director Rob Reiner and producer Michele Singer, Reiner remained impassive in the family portrait alongside his siblings.

Three months later, Reiner, 32, was arrested and considered responsible for the death of his parents, the Los Angeles Police Department reported in a statement on Monday. He is being held without bail.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office has not yet filed criminal charges in connection with the case.

It is unclear if Reiner has an attorney. CNN has reached out to a family spokesperson for comment.

While news of the Reiners’ deaths shocked Hollywood, it also renewed attention on Nick Reiner’s background and his previous struggles with addiction. This is what we know:

Nick Reiner was arrested Sunday night, police said, a few hours after his sister discovered his parents dead inside their family’s Brentwood home, according to police and a source familiar with the incident.

The night before, the couple and their son had attended a Christmas party at comedian Conan O’Brien’s home in Los Angeles.

During the party, Nick Reiner was seen arguing with his father, a source familiar with the incident told CNN. The connection, if any, the argument had to the murders is unknown.

Authorities have not provided further details about how the victims died or how investigators determined their son was responsible.

The Reiners come from Hollywood royalty. In the 1950s, comedian, actor and director Carl Reiner rose to fame with “The Dick Van Dyke Show.”

His son, Rob Reiner, became a household name in the 1970s for his role in the hit comedy “All in the Family” and later cemented his place as a Hollywood icon by directing films such as “This is Spinal Tap,” “When Harry Met Sally” and “A Few Good Men.”

But behind closed doors, the family, like many Americans, struggled to help their son overcome his battle with addiction.

Nick Reiner has previously said that he has been through numerous stays in rehab and has been homeless at times. He has also spoken about the arguments he had with his parents during his addiction.

In a 2018 episode of “Dopey,” a podcast about the winding journey between addiction and recovery, Reiner said he first entered rehab when he was 15 and over the years learned to work the system.

“I just thought, ‘You know what, I want to go home,’ and I stayed sober long enough until I could go home and then yeah, I just went home and did (drugs),” Reiner said on the podcast.

He also told the hosts about an outburst he had after being “kidnapped” at his parents’ guesthouse, which led to an argument.

“I got totally drug-addled, I think it was cocaine and something else, and I was awake for days at a time, and I started doing different things in my guest house,” Reiner said.

“I think I started with the TV and then I moved on to the lamp and then (…) everything in the guest house was destroyed.”

Reiner said the outburst ultimately led to another stint in rehab.

In 2015, Nick Reiner co-wrote the film “Being Charlie,” a film loosely inspired by his experiences with addiction and directed by his father.

During the film’s promotional tour, Nick Reiner often appeared alongside his father to talk about how he used his own experiences to inspire the film.

“That made me who I am now, having to deal with those things,” he told People magazine in 2016.

During a joint appearance on the AOL show “Build,” Reiner said he went through “many dark years” while battling addiction.

But he said he learned to use comedy as a way to deal with some of his experiences in rehab and later channeled it into the film.

Rehab is “tragic and all, but the people there won’t want you to pity them. They want you to laugh at the situation and make light of it,” he said.

During the same interview, Rob Reiner called the project “the most personal thing I’ve ever done” and talked about working with his son.

“You’re not setting out to have a cathartic experience or be therapeutic in any way,” the elder Reiner said.

“The fact that we were dealing with the things that Nick had gone through and how I and his mother had related to them (…) forced me to see more clearly and understand more deeply what Nick had gone through and I think it forced him to see things that I had experienced during this process.”