Exclusive: The Hollywood director Rob Reiner and the Epstein List, the Truth Behind a Viral Rumor?

NEED TO KNOW

• Rob and Michele Reiner’s bodies have been released back to their family, the Los Angeles Medical Examiner confirmed to PEOPLE
• Rob, 78, and Michele, 70, were found dead in their Los Angeles home on Sunday, Dec. 14
• Their son Nick Reiner, 32, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in connection with their deaths

The bodies of Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner have been returned to the Reiner family, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner confirmed to PEOPLE.

The bodies of the iconic Hollywood director Rob, 78, and his photographer wife Michele, 70, were repatriated to the family on Friday, Dec. 19, nearly a week after the couple were found dead in their Brentwood home from sharp force injuries, in what authorities have ruled was homicide.

Autopsies have been conducted on Rob and Michele, the Medical Examiner confirmed, but a full, detailed medical report is not expected from the coroner for up to 90 days.

The couple’s son Nick Reiner, 32, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of his parents, whom prosecutors believe were killed in the early morning hours of Sunday, Dec. 14.

According to reporting by TheNew York Times, the couple’s daughter, Romy, 27, found her father’s body after a massage therapist said she couldn’t reach her parents.

Romy reportedly “fled” the house without seeing that her mother had also been stabbed and was later told by a paramedic, per the Times.

About six hours later, Nick was arrested near the University of Southern California. He is currently being held without bail and has not entered a plea, with his arraignment scheduled for Jan. 7, 2026. Authorities have not shared a possible motive for the killings.

Prosecutors plan to pursue a potential sentencing increase for the special circumstance of multiple murders as well as a special allegation that he used a “dangerous and deadly” weapon, such as a knife, the D.A.’s office previously said.

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The couple was found dead shortly after Rob and Nick engaged in a “very loud argument” at a party hosted by Conan O’Brien, multiple sources previously told PEOPLE.

Nick has previously spoken openly about struggles with addiction and homelessness, beginning in his teenage years. A source close to the Reiners told PEOPLE in this week’s cover story, “They tried everything — giving him space, keeping him close — but his struggles are so deep. It’s just a parent’s worst nightmare.”

Rob and Michele got married in 1989 after meeting while he was directing When Harry Met Sally…

The pair share two other children, son Jake and daughter Romy, who said the loss of their parents and “best friends” was an “unimaginable pain we are experiencing every moment of the day,” in a statement shared with PEOPLE on Dec. 17.

In the wake of their parents’ shocking deaths, Jake and Romy are being “fiercely” protected by some of their many close friends in Hollywood, including Billy Crystal and Albert Brooks, sources tell PEOPLE.

For several years, posts on social media have claimed that various celebrities have connections to the disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in his jail cell in 2019. One name frequently included in such posts is film director Rob Reiner. In the wake of Reiner’s killing in December 2025, users on social media claimed Reiner was close with Epstein, even visiting Epstein’s private island.

Snopes readers wrote asking us to investigate the rumor that Reiner had connections with Epstein. We found there was no publicly available evidence supporting a connection.

Many of the posts connecting Reiner and Epstein simply named Reiner as one of a large number of high-profile figures who supposedly had ties to the sex criminal. Snopes found examples of that list online dating back to 2020, which was shared without evidence and was sometimes connected to the larger QAnon conspiracy theory. The public’s call for more scrutiny into investigations around Epstein in 2025 resulted in several releases of documents related to the cases, sometimes referred to as the “Epstein files.”

The U.S. Justice Department has said the files do not contain a rumored — and much-sought-after — list of high-profile people involved in the sex trafficking ring Epstein was charged with running. Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald journalist whose 2017 and 2018 articles on Epstein helped reopen the investigation that ultimately led to his 2019 arrest, called the existence of such a list a “red herring” in a 2025 interview with The Atlantic.

At times, social media posts have incorrectly claimed that Epstein’s phone book or the flight logs for his private plane make up a list of his co-conspirators. But the phone book, sometimes nicknamed the “black book,” was “just a phone directory,” according to Brown.

“Every time Epstein or Maxwell met somebody important, they would get their contact information, and they would put it in this file,” she told The Atlantic. “There were people like Donald Trump on that list and celebrities. But there were also his gardeners who were on that list, his hairdresser, his barbers, his electrician. I mean, it was a comprehensive list.”

It’s important to note, as New York magazine’s comprehensive list of prominent people linked to Epstein does, that just because someone is listed in Epstein’s phone book or had other documented ties to the disgraced financier does not mean that person was aware of or involved in any of Epstein’s crimes. (Reiner was not on New York magazine’s list.)

Regardless, Snopes went through Epstein’s phone book to see if there was an entry for Reiner. There was not. Given that Reiner did not even have an entry in Epstein’s directory, it’s unlikely — albeit not impossible — that the two ever interacted in a meaningful way, based on Brown’s knowledge of how he compiled the phone book.

Snopes also searched through publicly available portions of flight logs for Epstein’s private plane to see if Reiner was ever named as a passenger. He was not.

We also searched stock photo sites like Getty Images for pictures of Reiner and Epstein together. None existed.

In sum, we found no public evidence suggesting Reiner had any ties to Epstein.