Nick Reiner Revealed Violent Outburst, Family Issues and “Cocaine Heart Attack” on 2018 Podcast Taping

Nick Reiner, who is now behind bars accused of murdering his parents, Hollywood legend Rob Reiner and wife Michele, admitted during a 2018 podcast appearance that he once destroyed the family’s guest house while “spun out on uppers” like cocaine.

Nick confirmed to Dopey host David Manheim that he was sequestered in the residence “for days on end,” eventually going “10 rounds” destroying furniture and punching the television set. “I started with the TV and then I went over to the lamp and then [progressively], just everything in the guest house got wrecked,” Nick explained of a rampage that came after his parents delivered an ultimatum that he must leave their property. He added that he couldn’t recall specific details from the incident, just that he felt “crazy” during the fit.

Manheim noted how Nick called him afterward to ask for help finding a new place to live as they had been friends for some time, but shortly thereafter, Nick took off for Boston. It wasn’t his first Dopey podcast appearance, and the 2018 chat found him opening up (in short spurts) on a roller-coaster journey in recovery, a history that saw him check into nearly 20 facilities in his life. Themes of addiction and family dynamics were explored in Being Charlie, a 2014 film that he co-write and his father directed.

Dopey host Manheim welcomed Nick onto the episode by calling him a “total train wreck” and a good friend of the podcast. At the time he called in, Nick confirmed that he wasn’t sober, as he was “smoking a little weed” and “taking a little Adderall,” but that he wasn’t back on heroin. But he did share that a year and a half before the appearance, he was “back on dope and other things” and it led to a medical emergency.

“Long story short, I wound up having a cocaine heart attack,” Nick revealed, adding that the health scare came during an intervention as he was traveling across the country “passed out on the plane.” He woke up in a hospital in Boston. After that, he moved into a detox facility and later a sober living facility in Maine, where he was happy for a stint until he got homesick.

“I just didn’t want to be away from home, and I just wanted to come back home,” Nick continued. “I just wanted to get back to my old life of like smoking weed, kind of taking some pills, like, doing whatever I wanted. I knew that if I started to do it back in Maine, I wouldn’t really be able to do it right. I knew if I smoked once or if I took one pill, they would send me to some treatment. I saw that happen with a ton of kids there, so I was smart about it. So I just stayed sober long enough till I could go home.”

He added that he was excited about coming home again and that his brother, Jake, had also moved back, and that was “pretty cool.” Once back in Los Angeles, Nick said that he was focused on writing scripts, though he struggled with productivity. Asked if he had any parting words for podcast listeners, Nick said, “I have no parting words. Just everybody use or don’t use, stay, whatever.”

Rob Reiner, who directed such beloved Hollywood classics as This Is Spinal Tap, Stand by Me and When Harry Met Sally after starring in the trailblazing sitcom All in the Family, was found dead along with his wife, Michele, in their Brentwood home after “suffering lacerations consistent with a knife,” law enforcement sources confirmed. Said a spokesperson for the family: “It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner. We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time.”