Rob Reiner’s son Jake has spoken for the first time about the murder of his parents in a poignant new essay.
Filmmaker Rob, 78, and his wife Michele, 70, were found dead in their Los Angeles home on December 14, having sustained ‘multiple sharp force injuries’ from a knife.
The couple’s 32-year-old son Nick, who has battled addiction and was reportedly being treated for schizophrenia, has been charged with their murders. He has pleaded not guilty.
The married couple met while Rob was making the classic rom-com When Harry Met Sally, and later wed in 1989. They welcomed their eldest son Jake in 1991.
He has now penned a Substack essay titled Mom and Dad, in which he described the loss of his parents as ‘too devastating to comprehend’.
He wrote: ‘Nothing can prepare you for what it feels like to lose both parents instantly at the same time.
‘I still wake up every morning having to convince myself that, no, it’s not a dream. This truly is my living nightmare.’
Saying he’s been ‘robbed of so many things’ ever since, Jake continued: ‘My parents won’t be at my wedding, they won’t get to hold their future grandchild, and they won’t get to see me have the successful career I’m still seeking.
‘It simultaneously breaks my heart and enrages me.’
The 34-year-old, who has acted in shows including Curb Your Enthusiasm and For All Mankind, went on to write about the moment he learned of his parents’ deaths.
‘I was in Union Station [a Washington train station] at a celebration of life for one of my best friends, Christian Anderson, who died in October,’ he wrote.
‘It was at that moment I received a call from my sister Romy telling me our father was dead. Minutes later, she called back telling me our mother was also dead.’
He went on to say that while he cannot fathom what his parents experienced in their final moments, he ‘keeps coming back to how frightened they must have been’.
He wrote: ‘They were the last people in the world to deserve what happened to them. They deserved to be loved, they deserved to be respected, and above all they deserved to be appreciated for how much they gave to all three of us and to the world.
‘They should be enjoying the rest of their lives peacefully while growing older together. Instead, that was ripped away from them, from me, from Romy, and there was nothing we could do about it.’
Jake has since shared an Instagram post in the lead-up to his first birthday without his parents, in which he spoke about the ‘horrors’ of processing his grief.
Romy and Jake previously remembered the Princess Bride filmmaker and his wife as their ‘best friends’, in a statement in the days after their parents were found dead.
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