What To Know
- Jerry O’Connell discussed Nick Reiner’s appearance in court on his first day of guest-hosting Good Day New York.
- Nick pleaded not guilty to the murder of his parents, Rob and Michele Reiner.
- O’Connell opened up about his connection to the case, as he worked with Rob on the 1986 film Stand by Me.
Jerry O’Connell is serving as a guest host on Fox 5’s Good Day New York this week, and his first day coincided with some major entertainment news.
Nick Reiner pleaded not guilty to the murder of his parents, Rob and Michele Reiner, in a Los Angeles courtroom on Monday, February 23. O’Connell discussed Nick’s court appearance on Good Day New York that morning, as well as his own personal connection to Rob.
“For those who may not know, I am an actor, and I was in Stand by Me. It was my first job, and Rob Reiner was the director of Stand by Me. And this is very emotional for me to hear about,” O’Connell told viewers. “It’s going to be very difficult going through this whole trial process.”
O’Connell noted that he will be watching Nick’s case “closely in the hopes that it doesn’t become one of these circuses that, sort of, sometimes happen around these murder trials.” He concluded, “It’s very emotional and chilling, and it’s churning up a lot of emotions.”
O’Connell went on to build a notable career after Stand by Me, appearing in shows and films such as Scream 2, Jerry Maguire, Sliders, The Big Bang Theory, and Star Trek: Lower Decks, to name a few. O’Connell has also racked up several TV hosting gigs, most notably serving as a cohost on The Talk from 2021 until its end in 2024.
Monday marked O’Connell’s first day of his week-long guest hosting gig on Good Day New York with Rosanna Scotto. Deadline reported earlier this month that the temporary role will serve as a trial run for a potential daytime talk show led by O’Connell and Scotto for Fox Television Stations.
News broke in December 2025 that Rob and Michele had been found dead in their California home, and that Nick was the alleged perpetrator. Nick was taken into custody the day of their deaths and has been held without bail ever since.
Rob and Michele attended a holiday party hosted by Conan O’Brien with Nick the day before their deaths, at which Nick reportedly got into a fight with parents. O’Brien opened up about the tragedy on the Friday, February 20, episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour podcast.
“I knew Rob and Michele, and then increasingly got closer and closer to them, and I was seeing them a lot,” O’Brien stated. “My wife [Liza] and I were seeing them a lot. To have that experience of saying goodnight to somebody and having them leave and then find out the next day that they’re gone…”
O’Brien said he was “in shock for quite a while” after hearing news of Rob and Michele’s deaths. “I mean, there’s no other word for it. It’s just very — it’s so awful. It’s just so awful,” he stated. “And I think about how Rob felt about things that are happening in the country, how involved he was, how much he put himself out there — and to have that voice go quiet in an instant is still hard for me to comprehend.”
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