Jake Reiner Recalls Devastating Call From Sister Romy After She Found Their Dad Rob Reiner Dead: 'I Immediately Went Into Shock'

Jake Reiner is opening up about the devastating loss of his parents, Rob and Michele Reiner.

The journalist, whose brother Nick Reiner was arrested and later indicted on two counts of first-degree murder and pleaded not guilty to the charges, recalled the heartbreaking phone call he received from his sister Romy in December 2025.

During an interview with KABC-TV’s Marc Cota-Robles on Thursday, August 27, Jake said he initially missed Romy’s call because he was busy at the time.

“Romy called me, and I screened it because I thought at the time, ‘I’m in the middle of something,’” Jake recalled.

When Romy, 28, called again “immediately,” Jake said he “knew at that point that something was wrong.”

The second call quickly changed everything for Jake.

“Romy told me our dad was dead, and then she said, ‘I can’t find Mom,’ ” Jake said. “And I immediately went into shock. I need to get out of this train station, and I need to get to my parents’ house.”

As a local news reporter, Jake had covered situations like this before, but he never imagined his own family would one day face the same thing.

“When it’s your crime scene, like a crime scene at your childhood home, [it’s] like the most surreal thing I’ve ever seen,” Jake said.

Eight months after his parents’ deaths, Jake said the passage of time has been difficult to process.

“It’s been eight months. It feels like eight years at the same time. And it also feels like eight minutes,” Jake said of the time that has passed following his parents’ deaths. “Because every moment that I wake up, I’m reminded of my reality.”

Jake was repeatedly asked about Nick and his alleged involvement in the deaths but declined to discuss his brother’s case.

He did, however, speak about the relationship his parents had with their children and their efforts to support Nick through his struggles with drug addiction.

“My parents had unconditional love for all three of us,” Jake told the outlet of himself, Nick and Romy. “I can tell you they never stopped wanting to help him. They never stopped helping him.”

Nick had previously spoken publicly about his battle with addiction. He also worked with his father on the 2015 film Being Charlie, which was loosely inspired by his life.

“I think that that project was a way for my dad to try and connect with him,” Jake said of the film.

Throughout the emotional interview, Jake struggled to put his feelings about Nick into words.

He explained that the night his parents died, his family was changed forever — and that Nick’s arrest added another painful layer to the loss.

“I mean, he’s in jail so… you know, it’s like I physically lost my parents and then Nick was arrested and now it’s just me and Romy,” he explained.

Since his parents’ deaths, Jake has been working through his grief and attending therapy to help process everything that happened.

He said the emotional toll has taken several forms.

“It manifests into rage, into how unfair this was, how I didn’t get a say in what happened,” he said. “I didn’t get to stop it from happening. I had no choice in the matter. I just have to accept the reality of it. And to me, that is just one of the most infuriating parts of all of this.”

Even with months having passed and more details emerging, Jake said he still cannot make sense of the deaths of his parents.

For him, no explanation can fully answer the question of why his family experienced such a devastating loss.

“I’ll never understand. I don’t care how it’s explained to me,” he said. “I don’t care what facts come out. I will never understand why this happened.”