A Proposal: The Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner Mental Health Act of 2026

Nick Reiner is the reason California, and the country, desperately need involuntary civil confinement laws

[Note: At this time, Nick Reiner is a suspect in his parents’ murder. Under the law he is innocent until proven guilty. However, as all indications point to him as the killer, this post assumes it to be the case for the sake of argument.]

As the world knows, in the early morning hours of Saturday, December 14, famed director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were brutally stabbed to death by their son, Nick. Their blood soaked bodies were discovered around 3:30pm that afternoon by their daughter, Romy.

It was a cascade of horrors almost impossible to comprehend. The previous evening, Rob and Michele had attended a Christmas party at Conan O’Brien’s house. According to reports, Rob asked Conan if Nick could “tag along,” as his parents were reluctant to leave him home alone due to his recent erratic behavior. Nick’s conduct at the party apparently discomfited the other guests, and the family left after he got into an altercation with actor and comedian Bill Hader, which culminated in a verbal fight with his dad. Hours later, Nick stabbed his parents to death.

Nick Reiner’s struggles with mental health and addiction have long been known. In 2016, Rob produced a movie Nick wrote called “Being Charlie,” a loosely autobiographical story of the son of a famous father who grapples with addiction and resists recovery. In interviews he described being in and out of rehab “15 to 17 times” by the time he was 21 years old.

He is an obviously deeply ill human being. Even in pictures where he’s smiling there’s a haunted look in his eyes. That look is familiar to anyone who’s encountered a mentally ill homeless person on the streets. There’s no other look like it. To see it is to see the depths of the sort of sickness that manifests as evil. That’s not to blame them for their struggles, which are impossible to imagine. It’s to acknowledge that some mental illnesses tap into and feast upon the very worst human impulses.

A look of pure evil.

Nick Reiner’s derangement cannot be attributed to the drugs to which he is addicted. Even as a young child he had “tantrums” that frequently escalated to a point that his parents had to physically restrain him. A family friend, who wished to remain anonymous, told the New York Post “there was so much anger in his eyes. It was terrifying.”

He had every resource, every source of support, every treatment program and doctor and expert at his disposal. He had the resilient love of his parents and family, who reportedly were spending upward of $70,000 a month on his care, in addition to providing him room and board. Yet he still succumbed to his demons and murdered his parents in the most horrific way.

Thanks to misguided public policy, and politicians convinced that lawlessness equals compassion, thousands of Nick Reiners roam the streets of California every day. Like Nick, their demons cause them to commit all manner of criminal acts, ranging from petty disturbances and vandalism to violent sexual assaults, rapes and murders. In Los Angeles alone they set thousands of fires per year. They terrorize individuals and entire neighborhoods.

Also like Nick Reiner, they are incurable. They will never, ever live normal lives. They will never not be a threat to themselves and others. They will always, always be one misinterpreted word, action or look from a full psychotic break and the violence that comes with it.

Many, if not all of us, have had moments when we snapped. Road rage, a political argument that got out of hand, one too many shots of whiskey. Most people quickly recover themselves, apologize if possible, and resolve to be better in the future.

Imagine living in that state of extreme rage and agitation nearly all the time. Recall your personal worst moment, and imagine that it lasts a lifetime. Hour after hour, day after day, year after grinding, hellish year. Relentless, implacable, incurable. Imagine trying drugs or alcohol that you hope will sate the demons only to discover that they act as psychological steroids you cannot escape. Mental illness becomes its own fuel — those childhood tantrums become adult psychotic breaks. Eventually, inevitably, one day you snap once and for all and do the unspeakable. Your rage metastasizes into something that must destroy anything you perceive as good and beautiful. If you cannot have the calm that someone else has, you will take it from them. Who are they to get along so easily in this life that torments you?

Not just another down on his luck case. Photo by Christopher LeGras.

None of those thousands of mentally ill addicts menacing California’s public spaces have even a fraction of the resources and help Nick Riener has had over the course of his life. If he ultimately succumbed and became the very physical embodiment of his demons, what possible chance do others who suffer similarly have?

The answer is, they don’t stand a chance.

Rob and Michele Reiner were famously politically active. What better way can California honor their memories and legacies than by passing legislation in their names that requires the Nick Reiners of the world to be civilly confined to care and treatment facilities where they can be protected from themselves, and the public protected from them? That’s not a call for a return to the bad old days of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It is to once and finally acknowledge that certain mental illnesses are incurable. A small handful of people will never escape their demons.

The current system is profoundly broken. “Permanent supportive housing” does nothing to help the Nick Reiners of the world, and even less to protect innocents from them. Even the handful of good, honest nonprofits and NGOs are hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with people who can become violent at any moment.

A personal anecdote: Some years ago I and a few others attempted to help a mentally ill man who was housed by a nonprofit in Venice. He was highly unstable, suffered from delusions of grandeur and was all but split from reality even on his good days. He was also highly intelligent, in a manic way.

After interacting with him via text and email, we met with him one day at a friend’s condo in Venice. He had compelling evidence that the nonprofit not only was failing to provide any meaningful support, but was actively exploiting him for financial gain. We hoped that by publicizing his story we could help him and also hold the corrupt nonprofit to account.

Instead, less than 24 hours after the meeting, his demons convinced him that I was a spy for the city of Los Angeles, sent to snuff out anyone who dared become a whistleblower. Over the next nine months he frequently texted me all manner of threats, up to and including death threats. They always came late at night. Once or twice a week I’d wake up to a dozen or more texts from him. I disregarded them until one day he texted a photo of my car parked in my locked garage. A few days later he sent a screenshot of the Google Earth image of my mother’s house in northern California. When I contacted the police in both my mother’s town and L.A., both told me there was nothing they could do unless they caught him in an “overt act.” Evidence of criminal trespass coupled with threats somehow was insufficient.

He did all of this while he presumably remained housed at the Venice nonprofit.

Two friends of mine have been violently assaulted by people like Nick Riener. One, who is in his mid 60s, was violently attacked in Santa Monica’s Palisades Park for the sin of making eye contact. He ended up with brain damage that required three open skull surgeries. The other, a young schoolteacher from Greece, was sucker punched in broad daylight a few blocks from her apartment. She suffered a shattered jaw, a cracked eye socket and a severe concussion. She had to eat through a straw for two months. She has severe PTSD to this day and rarely ventures outside. Both lives are inexorably altered. Neither will ever be the same.

We cannot go on like this. If the evil of mental illness can destroy the beloved director behind When Harry Met Sally, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, Sleepless In Seattle, This Is Spinal Tap, and so many others, it can destroy anyone.

Let’s call it the Rob and Michele Reiner Mental Health Act of 2026. For a fraction of the tens of billions of dollars California has wasted on not solving the homelessness and mental health crises we can establish a small network of care facilities designed for those whose mental illness renders them dangers to themselves and others. These facilities should be separate from residential neighborhoods but not so far that residents cannot receive visits from family and friends. Those who temporarily stabilize should have the right to temporary, monitored release. Visits home for the holidays. The facilities themselves should not resemble prisons or hospitals but apartment complexes, albeit with robust security. Residents should have opportunities to study, work, create, exercise and entertain. 

I never met the Reiners, but based on what the world knows about them it’s all but certain they’d be gratified to know that their personal tragedy catalyzed a change in public policy that protects the world from people like their son, while ensuring that the Nick Reiners of the world at last and finally get the care and treatment they need.