Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective
Michele Singer Reiner
American film producer (1955–2025) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Remove ads
Michele Reiner (née Singer; March 3, 1955 – December 14, 2025) was an American photographer, political activist, and film producer. She was the wife of filmmaker and actor Rob Reiner. Reiner was originally a photographer, taking the cover picture of The Art of the Deal (1987). She later worked on When Harry Met Sally... (1989), where she met her future husband and inspired him to revise the film's ending.
 | A request that this article title be changed to Michele Reiner is under discussion. Please do not move this article until the discussion is closed. |
.jpg)
Reiner expanded into political activism with her husband and moved into producing in the 2010s, for which she was nominated at the Primetime Emmy Awards for producing Albert Brooks: Defending My Life (2023). She frequently collaborated with her husband and was the co-president of Castle Rock Entertainment. On December 14, 2025, Reiner and her husband were found stabbed to death in their Los Angeles home. Their son, Nick Reiner, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder.
Remove ads
Early life and education
Michele Singer was born on March 3, 1955.[a][10] She was born into a Jewish family. Her mother Nicole Bernheim Silberkleit (née Silberkleit) was a Holocaust survivor. At the age of 17, Silberkleit and her family were taken from their home in Strasbourg to the Drancy internment camp, and were later deported to Auschwitz concentration camp.[9] Silberkleit was the only member of her family to leave alive,[9] having escaped a death march in 1944.[8] She immigrated to the United States soon after, first living in Tulsa, Oklahoma, before New York City.[8] There, she had three daughters: Michele, Suzanne and Martine.[8][9] As a child, Reiner studied in the Upper East Side in Manhattan, New York City. She attended the School of Visual Arts.[9]
Remove ads
Career
Summarize
Perspective
Reiner began her career in photography.[11] She started as a photographer's assistant,[9] and then became a freelance photographer, including frequently for Fortune.[8] She worked on the MysteryDisc series of video games as a photographer.[11] In the 1980s, she photographed Donald Trump for the cover of his first book, The Art of the Deal (1987),[4][12][13] something she later described as "regrettable".[8] Years later, her future husband would become a well-known critic of Trump.[14][4] She also shot the real estate tycoon Samuel J. LeFrak.[9]
Rob Reiner met her on the set of When Harry Met Sally..., and she inspired him to alter the ending so that Harry and Sally entered a romantic relationship by the end of the film.[14] She worked as an actress in the Nora Ephron film Mixed Nuts (1994).[11] She collaborated with her husband on several films, including Misery, where she was a photographer,[4] and later pivoted towards producing with Shock and Awe (2017), Albert Brooks: Defending My Life (2023), God & Country (2024), and Spinal Tap II: The End Continues (2025).[4] For her work on Albert Brooks: Defending My Life, she received a nomination for Outstanding Documentary Or Nonfiction Special at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards.[15]
In 2020, Reiner and her husband signed a producing and directing deal with Warner Bros. Television by a production company under Castle Rock Entertainment,[16] which Rob helped found.[17] Reiner was the co-president of Castle Rock Entertainment along with Matthew George.[18] She also founded the production and photography company Reiner Light.[19] Reiner and her husband were executive producers on Wind River: The Next Chapter, a sequel to Wind River (2017), prior to their deaths.[20]
In addition to filmmaking and photography, Reiner was also a political activist. Rob credited Michele with being the "force" to the couple's advocacy.[8] Along with Rob, she headed a campaign in California to fund early childhood development programs by increasing tobacco taxes.[8][21] They also founded the American Foundation for Equal Rights,[21] which overturned 2008 California Proposition 8[8] and launched a federal lawsuit for same-sex marriage rights;[21] Reiner was an LGBTQ rights activist.[13] Her and Rob's advocacy helped achieve the landmark decision to allow marriage equality across the United States, with Kelley Robinson saying "they remained committed to the cause until their final days."[13] Later in her life, she focused on supporting those wrongfully incarcerated, working with the Innocence Project.[8] Her advocacy for various social justice issues was inspired by her mother, who survived the Holocaust.[13]
Remove ads
Personal life
Summarize
Perspective
.jpg)
Reiner was fluent in French and Spanish.[9] She met her future husband Rob Reiner on the set of When Harry Met Sally... (1989). The eponymous character Harry, a "miserable, divorced, Jewish romantic lead", was based on Rob. Rob had intended to call Michelle Pfeiffer after reading about her divorce in a magazine, to which Barry Sonnenfeld, the film's photography director, said, "You're not going to call her, you're going to marry my friend Michele Singer".[14] They married in 1989,[22] in a private ceremony in Hawaii witnessed by two strangers, including an elderly woman who told Rob she was a fan of The Princess Bride.[9] They had three children:[22] Jake (b. 1991), Nick (b. 1993), and Romy (b. 1997).[4]
Michele and Rob's eldest son Jake has been involved in filmmaking and was a news reporter in Houston, Texas.[23][24][25] Second son Nick entered the first of a number of stays in drug rehab at the age of 14,[26] cycling "in and out of rehab" subsequently for years, and was even homeless at times.[26] He has been arrested and charged for the murder of his parents.[27] Their youngest child, daughter Romy, is a filmmaker and had a very close relationship with them.[25] Romy discovered her father's body in their Brentwood home soon after the killing.[28]
Death
Summarize
Perspective
Reiner and her husband were due to have dinner with Michelle and Barack Obama on the evening of December 14, 2025. That afternoon, a massage therapist came to their Brentwood, Los Angeles, residence for a previously scheduled appointment for the couple, and was met with a lack of response; she then called the couple's daughter Romy.[29] Romy, who lived nearby, arrived quickly at around 3 p.m., and discovered the bodies. Her friend then called 911.[30] Contrary to early reports, a source revealed to the New York Times on December 16, 2025, that Romy, who arrived at her parents' shared home with her roommate, only discovering Rob's body before fleeing the home in panic, having no knowledge that her mother was even in the home at the time and Michele's death being revealed to her later by the massage therapist.[29][31][32]
Reiner and her husband were killed early in the morning on December 14 from multiple stab wounds.[30][3] She was 70.[a] At the time of their death, they had been married for 36 years.[33] Their son Nick was soon arrested on suspicion of murder.[6] On December 17, 2025, Michele and Rob's other two children Jake and Romy released a joint statement calling their parents their "best friends."[34] Several prominent figures extended tributes towards Reiner and her husband, including Nancy Pelosi, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Laurie David.[4] Rita Wilson, who was friends with Reiner, wrote that she was an "enormously talented photographer" and praised her producing work.[17] Kelley Robinson, the president of LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, thanked Reiner for her allyship and support of the community, while Dustin Lance Black, another LGBTQ activist, said "the world has lost two of its greatest champions of justice, love and equality".[13] The Los Angeles County District attorney Nathan Hochman called Reiner an "iconic photographer and producer".[35]
.jpg)
The Los Angeles Police Department opened a homicide investigation into their deaths and on December 16, 2025, her son Nick was charged with two counts of first-degree murder with a special circumstance of multiple murders.[36][37] Nick would then make his first court appearance on the murder charges on December 17, 2025, with the appearance only being brief and not seeing him enter any plea.[38][39] Nick's official arraignment is set to be held in January 2026.[40]
Remove ads
Filmography
| † | Denotes film or TV productions that have not yet been released |
Remove ads
Awards and nominations
Remove ads
Notes
References
External links
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Remove ads