What We Know One Week After the Reiners’ Murder and Conan O’Brien’s Christmas Party – and Much We Don’t

A thick fog has settled around reports out of Conan O’Brien’s Dec. 13 holiday party — the night before Rob and Michelle Reiner were found dead in their Brentwood home and days before their son Nick was charged in their murder.

Here’s what we know for certain: Rob Reiner, his wife Michele Singer Reiner and their 32-year-old son, Nick, attended. At some point, as they mingled and circulated around well-dressed partygoers, Nick’s appearance, demeanor and social intrusions began to gain attention – including a moment when he interrupted “SNL” alum Bill Hader and O’Brien mid-conversation.

And here’s what we don’t know for certain: Anything else you may have read or heard.

At least nine news outlets with different unnamed sources reported last week that an altercation took place between Nick and his parents. They include TMZ (“family sources”); People (“multiple sources at the party”); the Los Angeles Times (“family friends”); the New York Times (“two attendees”); CBS News (“sources at the party”); the New York Post (“pals” and “sources”); THR (sources not characterized); Rolling Stone (“sources”); and The Daily Mail (“multiple attendees”).

Each has slightly different details, with a wide range of how the incident is described, from an awkward and uncomfortable exchange (Rolling Stone) to a “loud argument,” “shouting match” or “massive blow-up” (People, TMZ, NYT, New York Post). None suggests there was any kind of physical exchange.

Not one person who was at the party, a highly private affair at O’Brien’s home in the Pacific Palisades, has spoken on the record. Besides O’Brien and the Reiners, only Hader and Jane Fonda have been named as being there, and neither of them has spoken publicly or even confirmed their attendance.

Then, on Friday, TheWrap reported that there was no blow-up, citing a Hollywood executive who was there.

“That’s bulls–t,” the executive told TheWrap, speaking specifically of the Daily Mail report Friday that O’Brien himself talked guests out of calling police over the alleged Reiner fight.

The executive, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Nick Reiner was acting erratically around the A-list crowd, but denied any major confrontation, telling TheWrap: “I said to Conan the next day – I said, ‘What is all this stuff about a fight?’ He said, ‘I saw no fight.’”

The executive said Nick Reiner was, in fact, “walking around making people feel uncomfortable. Eavesdropping on conversations and that kind of thing.”

But the executive was vehement that O’Brien and guests did not witness a shouting match between Rob and Nick Reiner, adding, “If there had been a big fight with the Reiners, there were a million people there I knew. No one mentioned it to me.”

TheWrap’s reporting echoed the New York Times earlier last week, citing a family friend, also reported that stories of a confrontation at the holiday gathering were “overblown.”

Even reports of the Reiners’ comings-and-goings have been divergent; initial reports had it that the Reiners left immediately after the argument, but the Times’ source disputed that, saying the family had “grown used to” Nick’s unusual behavior and would not have flinched. Rolling Stone reported that the Reiners brought Nick along to “keep an eye on him,” while People reported that the family was “never worried” that Nick would turn violent and were settled into his recent return home.

Hollywood has always been quick to gossip, and slow to publicly tear down its own. Add in the factors of an embarrassing incident at an elite, invite-only party where extreme discretion is silently baked into the invitation and the unspeakable tragedy for one of the town’s most beloved family patriarchs, is it any wonder that this game of telephone has overloaded the circuits?

It’s possible that more details from the party will come forth at trial; prosecutors looking to establish a timeline and motive to convict Nick Reiner of the double murder of his parents could subpoena the invite list and call for live testimony from any number of attendees, including O’Brien himself. At this rate, with Hollywood carefully circling the wagons around the Reiner murders, they shouldn’t expect any volunteers.

On the other hand, the Los Angeles County District Attorney would appear to have no problem getting a conviction without ever making a single call from the O’Brien party invite list. The physical evidence alone will be overwhelming, with materials from the crime scene itself, bloodstained linens recovered at the hotel room to which Nick Reiner fled the night of the murders, untold spools of security footage and quite possibly a confession of some kind on their evidence sheet.

Nick Reiner, 32, was formally charged Tuesday with two counts of first-degree murder after being arrested on Sunday as the main suspect in his parents’ deaths, which were ruled later in the week as homicide by stabbing. The charges came two days after he was picked up in Exposition Park, near the USC campus, hours after Rob and Michele were found by their daughter, Romy, stabbed to death in their Brentwood home.

Reiner’s charges carry a possible sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, while a decision regarding the death penalty is still pending, D.A. Nathan Hochman said.

Nick made his first appearance in court on Wednesday, where he spoke only once, responding “Yes, your honor,” before the arraignment hearing was postponed to Jan. 7. A courtroom sketch showed Nick appearing in a blue jail-issued suicide prevention vest. 

Nick’s attorney Alan Jackson asked the public on Wednesday to allow the legal process to unfold “with restraint and with dignity.”

“There are very, very complex and serious issues that are associated with this case,” the defense attorney said. “Things need to be thoroughly but very carefully dealt with and examined and analyzed.”

Nick Reiner is currently being held without bail pending his arraignment.

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