Michelle and Barack Obama were scheduled to meet with Rob and Michele Reiner on the day the deaths occurred.
Rob and Michele Reiner are being honored by Michelle Obama. The former first lady revealed that she and Barack Obama were supposed to see the When Harry Met Sally director and his wife of more than thirty years on December 14, the day after they were discovered dead in their Brentwood, California, home.
“We’ve known them for many, many years and were supposed to be seeing them that night, last night,” Michelle gave an explanation on Jimmy Kimmel Live! December 15 “Let me just say this, unlike some people, Rob and Michele Reiner were some of the most decent, courageous people you ever want to know.”
The 61-year-old highlighted how Rob, 78, and Michele, 68, made the most of their life.
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“They have always been passionate people in a time where there’s not a lot of courage going on,” Michelle clarified. “They were the kind of people who were ready to put their actions behind what they cared about. They cared about their family, and they cared about this country, and they cared about fairness and equity. That is the truth. I do know them.”
On the afternoon of December 14, Rob and Michele, who shared Jake Reiner, 34, Nick Reiner, 32, and Romy Reiner, 28, were discovered dead in their house in what appeared to be a homicide. In a news release on December 15, the Los Angeles Police Department reported that their son Nick was taken into jail that night and charged with murder. He is still being held without bail.
Apart from the Obamas, a lot of others have conveyed their sincere sympathies for Rob and Michele's passing, including Jane Fonda, who mirrored Michelle's thoughts about what the late couple stood for.
“Rob and Michele Reiner were wonderful, caring, smart, funny, generous people, always coming up with ideas for how to make the world better, kinder,” the actress from Barbarella said in an Instagram post on December 15. “I saw them night before last looking healthy and happy. I am reeling with grief. Stunned.”
Following the incident, the Reiner family asked for privacy while they processed the heartbreaking loss. Tracy Reiner, Rob's daughter and his late ex-girlfriend Penny Marshall's daughter, highlighted her disbelief.
“I don’t know what to say,” she told NBC News in a press release. “I came from the greatest family ever”
