Rob Reiner, film director and LGBTQ+ activist, found dead with wife in alleged homicide
Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were found dead in their home. (Getty)
Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were found dead in their home. (Getty)
Legendary director Rob Reiner and his wife, producer Michele Singer Reiner, have died in an alleged homicide.
The Hollywood filmmaking couple were found dead in their home in Los Angeles, California on Sunday (14 December). According to US media, they were found with stab wounds and a member of their family was being questioned.
A spokesperson for the family confirmed their “tragic passing” in a statement to CNN, adding: “We are heartbroken by this sudden loss and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time.”
The Los Angeles Police Department said it had launched an investigation into an apparent homicide. A family member is being questioned, but authorities have said no suspects are being sought at this time.
The exalted director, 78, wrote, directed, and starred in a cavalcade of film and TV classics, including When Harry Met Sally, This is Spinal Tap, Misery, and much more.
Michele Reiner, 67, also helped produce several projects, including Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, and Shock and Awe.
The Screen Actors Guild (SAG), which represents tens of thousands of actors, directors, and performer, paid tribute in the wake of their passing, saying that Rob Reiner was “one of the most significant figures in the history of film and television”.
Union president Sean Astin said that Rob’s influence on American culture and media “simply can’t be overstated”, including his “impossibly long list of genre-defining films and indelible performances”.
“So many of Mr Reiner’s films and performances made me think, made me emotional, and especially they made me laugh really hard. That’s how I will remember him.”
Outside of filmmaking, Rob and Michele used their platform to fight for a plethora of progressive issues, including LGBTQ+ rights.
In 2009, Rob co-founded the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), a non-profit organisation created to support a challenge against an impending ban on same-sex marriage in California.
The challenge, Hollingsworth v Perry, eventually paved the way for the Supreme Court to take on Obergefell v Hodges, which resulted in the nationwide legalisation of same-sex marriage in the US.
In 2015, writing for Variety, the director said on LGBTQ+ rights: “Forty years from now, we’ll look back on this the same way we do on women having the right to vote or on African-Americans having civil rights. It will be kind of quaint. People will wonder what all the fuss was about.”
He further showed his support for the community at the Human Rights Campaign’s LA dinner in 2019, saying the world needed to “move past singling out transgender, LGBTQ+, Black, white, Jewish, Muslim, Latino” people.
“We have to get way past that and start accepting the idea that we’re all human beings, we all share the same planet, and we should all have the same rights, period,” he said. “It’s no more complicated than that.”
