A heartbreaking video of Rob Reiner defending his son Nick against nepo baby critics has resurfaced as the Hollywood rich kid stands accused of murdering his parents.
The famed filmmaker, 78, and his troubled son, 32, delved into their complex relationship and Nick’s substance abuse on the Inside Out With Paul Mecurio podcast in May 2016.
This segment aired just weeks after the release of the movie Being Charlie, which Rob directed and Nick co-wrote, based on Nick’s real-life struggles with heroin addiction and homelessness.
Mecurio asked Nick if it was difficult to have the film pull back the curtain on intimate details about his life – including both the good times and the bad.
‘It’s not hard to reveal that stuff, it’s only hard to reveal that stuff to then get told you’re a spoiled, white, rich kid,’ he said at the time. ‘It’s like okay, I may be all these things but -‘
‘Okay, but who would say that to you? Not your dad.’ Mercurio interjected.
The beloved creator of When Harry Met Sally then swooped in to stand up for his son.
‘The world,’ Rob replied. ‘I know what it’s like to be the “son of” and to have people assume certain things about you and it’s very, very difficult.’
Like Nick, Rob had an affluent background and a famous father, Carl Reiner.
Carl was an author, comedian, director and screenwriter who won 11 Primetime Emmy Awards and a Grammy.
Paul asked how Rob handled the societal pressure and stigmas that came along with having a parent in the limelight.
‘You have to block out all that extraneous noise and it’s hard for [Nick], because this is the first time he’s all of a sudden, there’s a lot of attention,’ he said, referencing the fact that Being Charlie essentially propelled his life into the public eye.
Rob continued: ‘People are talking and he has the double whammy, he’s got me and he’s got his grandfather, and they’re going to say whatever the heck they want.
‘But they don’t know, they don’t know what he’s experienced. They don’t know what he’s gone through. They don’t know why he’s done what he does.’
‘It’s pretty dumb, pretty ignorant of people to say “just because you’re born and you have money” that doesn’t mean anything. But you have to keep yourself focused and know what you do,’ he added.
Earlier in the roughly 40-minute interview, Nick said that he was ‘lucky’ to have parents who care about him.
He also admitted to feeling a sense of ‘guilt’ when he would ‘go out and do things like drugs’ because he knew that he was on their mind.
‘Deep down, he trusted that we loved him and that we were there for him, and that put a little bit of a break on certain things,’ Rob added.
Nick has been open about his long history of drug addiction – finding himself in and out of rehab since his teens.
‘I am a spoiled, white, rich kid from a Hollywood family,’ he told NPR in 2016. ‘But I think it’s even more of a testament to how powerful drugs can be that you don’t care about any of that stuff.’
About nine and a half years after the eerie interview, Rob and his wife Michele, 70, were found fatally stabbed in their home in Los Angeles’ ritzy Brentwood neighborhood.
Nick, who was living in his parent’s guest house, was arrested on Sunday night from a motel near the Santa Monica pier, just hours after his sister, Romy, 28, discovered their parents’ bodies.
The alleged killer has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder. He made his first court appearance on Wednesday, when the judge pushed his arraignment to January 7.
