- - Martin Scorsese Calls Rob and Michele Reiner's Deaths 'an Obscenity' in Emotional Essay: 'It Breaks My Heart'

Jack SmartDecember 26, 2025 at 12:56 AM

0

Arturo Holmes/Getty; Stefanie Keenan/Getty

Martin Scorsese; Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner -

Rob and Michele Reiner were found dead in their Los Angeles home on Dec. 14; their son Nick has been charged with murder

In a guest essay for The New York Times, Martin Scorsese wrote about his "profound sadness" over losing his two friends, calling their deaths “an obscenity”

The director recalled befriending Rob in the 1970s and casting him in 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street

Martin Scorsese is mourning the loss of his friends Rob and Michele Reiner.

In a new guest essay for The New York Times, the Oscar-winning director, 83, wrote, “What happened to Rob and Michele is an obscenity, an abyss in lived reality.” After the couple were found dead in their Los Angeles home on Dec. 14, their son Nick Reiner was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of his parents.

“Rob Reiner was my friend, and so was Michele,” Scorsese began his essay. “From now on, I’ll have to use the past tense, and that fills me with such profound sadness.”

Noting that Rob, son of Carl and Estelle Reiner, "came from New York show business royalty," Scorsese recalled getting to know the When Harry Met Sally… director and his then-wife Penny Marshall in Los Angeles in the early 1970s at comedian George Memmoli's get-togethers.

Frazer Harrison/Getty

Martin Scorsese and Rob Reiner in 2014

“Right away, I loved hanging out with Rob,” wrote the Killers of the Flower Moon director. “We had a natural affinity for each other. He was hilarious and sometimes bitingly funny, but he was never the kind of guy who would take over the room. He had a beautiful sense of uninhibited freedom, fully enjoying the life of the moment, and he had a great barreling laugh.”

— sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Scorsese named Rob’s 1990 horror movie Misery as his favorite, and called his 1984 directorial debut This Is Spinal Tap “in a class of its own.” In Scorsese's 2013 hit The Wolf of Wall Street, Rob played onscreen father to Leonardo DiCaprio, which included what the filmmaker called a “wonderful moment” involving Rob playing a “loving father, mystified by his son.”

Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty

Rob Reiner and Martin Scorsese in 2014

“I was moved by the delicacy and openness of his performance when we shot it, moved once again as we brought the scene together in the edit and moved as I watched the finished picture,” recalled Scorsese. “Now, it breaks my heart to even think of the tenderness of Rob’s performance in this and other scenes.”

Scorsese’s emotional essay concluded with a poignant wish: “...that one day, I’ll be at a dinner or a party and find myself seated next to Rob, and I’ll hear his laugh and see his beatific face and laugh at his stories and relish his natural comic timing, and feel lucky all over again to have him as a friend.”

Rob and Michele, 78 and 70 at the time of their deaths, were parents to Nick, Jake and Romy. Rob was also dad to Tracy, with his late first wife Marshall. Nick, 32, made his first appearance in court on Dec. 17. He wore a blue anti-suicide smock and shackles, and his attorney, Alan Jackson, declined to enter a plea for his client. The Being Charlie screenwriter’s arraignment is scheduled to continue on Jan. 7.

BACKGRID; Eric Charbonneau/Getty

Nick Reiner on Sept. 9; Rob and Michele Reiner in 2017

A number of Rob’s other Hollywood friends and collaborators — including Jamie Lee Curtis and her husband Christopher Guest, Billy Crystal, Albert Brooks, Kathy Bates, Corey Feldman, Cary Elwes, John Cusack, Mandy Patinkin and more — have paid tribute to his life and career since his murder.

on People

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”