Michelle Singer Reiner, who was killed along with her husband, director Rob Reiner, on Sunday at their Los Angeles home, was a photographer who moved from still images to filmmaking and then to producing, working in a way that combined performance, politics and persuasion. She was 70.
Singer Rainer worked as a photographer in the late 1980s, visiting film sets as part of her income. One such set was the romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally…, which Rob Reiner filmed in New York, a film that would go on to become one of the defining hits of the era. Divorced eight years ago from actor and director Penny Marshall, Reiner said he spotted his future wife on set and was immediately drawn to her.
Written by Nora Ephron, the film was originally written to have its central couple, played by Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal, go their separate ways, crossing paths over the years but never ending up together. But after meeting Singer Reiner, Reiner changed his mind. He rewrote the final scene to have the characters reunite and get married, and this ending helped make the film a beloved classic.
They married in 1989, a few months after the film's release. They had three children: Jake, born in 1991; Nick, born 1993; and Romy, born in 1997.
Hours after a couple was found dead in their Brentwood home. Nick Rayner He, who had struggled with substance abuse problems for years, was taken into custody and booked into the Los Angeles County Jail on suspicion of murder, according to jail records. He had spoke publicly about sobriety to 2015, when he worked with his father on Being Charlie, a semi-autobiographical film about addiction and recovery, directed by Rob Reiner and co-written by Nick.
Since their wedding, singer Reiner has worked on several of Reiner's films, including as a special photographer on Misery, his 1990 film adaptation of the Stephen King novel. Their marriage also became a working partnership. As Reiner's career expanded beyond studio films and into documentary and political projects, singer Reiner, who earlier in her career photographed the cover of Donald Trump in a photograph of his 1987 best-selling book The Art of the Deal, was closely associated with these efforts, participating in films and propaganda campaigns that increasingly overlapped.
Their civic orientation manifested itself early. In the 1990s, she and Rainer started the I Am Your Child Project, aimed at raising awareness of early childhood development and increasing access to support services for parents.
The initiative coincided with Reiner's emergence as one of Hollywood's most prominent political voices. He was a founding member of the American Equal Rights Foundation, which led the legal fight to repeal Proposition 8, the California law banning same-sex marriage. He also was a central figure in the implementation of Proposition 10, the California Children and Families Initiative, a landmark policy that created an ambitious statewide early childhood development program.
In the last decade, Singer Reiner has moved more fully into producing. Her credits include Reiner's Shock and Awe (2017), Albert Brooks: Defending My Life (2023) and this year's Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, as well as God and Country, a 2024 documentary exploring Christian nationalism in the United States.
As news of their deaths spread, tributes highlighted the Reiners' public life together. Laurie David, an environmental activist and documentary filmmaker who was a close friend of the couple, wrote on Threads that “Rob and Michelle—always called Rob and Michelle—were an extraordinary couple who worked side by side to make the world a safer, fairer, and more just society.”
Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also released a joint statement calling the couple's deaths “heartbreaking” and pointing to what they called the Reiners' “active citizenship” in defense of “inclusive” democracy. “They were good, generous people who made everyone who knew them better people,” the statement said.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the loss “devastating,” writing that while Reiner was creative, funny and loved, singer Reiner was his “indispensable partner, intellectual resource and loving wife” in all their endeavors.
