Conan O'Brien Says Losing Rob and Michele Reiner Feels 'Hollow'

Conan O'Brien is still coming to terms with the loss of his close friends Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner.

The comedian, 63, spoke about the couple at the Children's Institute's eighth annual Cape & Gown Gala in Beverly Hills on Sunday, Nov. 8, nearly a year after their deaths, People reports.

"It's so devastating and surreal that Rob and Michele are not with us anymore," O'Brien said. "I think multiple times a week, it will hit me that they're not here. It leaves you feeling very hollow."

"We keep them close"

For O'Brien, the gala was more than a night out. He called the event "just a way to imagine and realize that they're here and they're working."

He said the best way to honor the couple is to keep doing what they started. "They started something, and we keep them with us," he said. "We keep them close if we join in and do the work because that's what they were all about."

O'Brien was photographed at the gala with his wife, Liza Powel O'Brien, and Chelsea Handler.

How the evening went

The Children's Institute, a Los Angeles nonprofit founded in 1906, says it serves about 30,000 children and families a year. It reported more than 600 guests at the Beverly Wilshire and a record $4 million raised for early education, mental health services and whole-family support.

Filmmaker Barry Sonnenfeld, a longtime friend of Rob Reiner, emceed, according to the organization's release. John Mayer performed "The Heart of Life" and "Gravity." Some coverage described Handler as the host, but the release lists her as a special guest. She spoke about the couple too.

"Rob and Michele have brought so many of us together," Handler, 51, said. "They are with us, and they will remain with us."

The Children's Institute's Instagram post about the gala.

Gala totals

The $4 million is the biggest figure the group has reported for the event, and it comes from the group itself. Earlier totals from its own releases:

The organization's own pages list no total for the 2025 gala.

Jamie Lee Curtis receives the first award

The Reiners' children, Jake and Romy, presented the first Michele & Rob Reiner Champion for Change Award to Jamie Lee Curtis, 67. The award was created with Jake, Romy and Michele's sister, Martine Singer, who is the Children's Institute's president and CEO.

The organization credits Curtis's charity effort My Hand In Yours with raising nearly $2 million for Children's Hospital Los Angeles.

"I love the name for this award: Champion for Change," Jake said, according to People. He told the room, as TODAY reported, "Eleven months ago we could barely stand, let alone speak, in front of an audience like this."

Curtis said at the gala, "Rob and Michele lived so fiercely, so loudly. They were undeniable." Before the presentation she told Extra, "It's not a memorial. It is a moving forward together using their energy to inspire all of us." She added, "There hasn't been a big public memorial yet, and so we're all grieving."

Jamie Lee Curtis's Instagram post from the gala.

"Their love was generous, fierce and unconditional"

Singer said the award recognizes the couple's decades of advocacy for children and families.

"Their love was generous, fierce and unconditional: if they loved you, you knew it," she said. "What's amazing is that their love extended to all children."

She called the couple "a force field" and said the organization wants to continue "expressing that outrage, that sense of urgency, and do something with our own loud voices." In her words, "That's how we amplify the genius and the power of their work."

What O'Brien has said before

O'Brien had grown close to the Reiners in the years before their deaths. In a February interview with The New Yorker, he said, "I knew Rob and Michele, and then increasingly got closer and closer to them," and "They were just such lovely people."

The couple attended his holiday party on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, and were found dead the next day. "And to have that experience of saying good night to somebody and having them leave and then find out the next day that they're gone," he told the magazine. "I think I was in shock for quite a while afterward."

Extra reported in March that O'Brien described the evening to The Hollywood Reporter this way: "We had a party, we invited our really good friends and then, the next day, this terrible thing happened."

He also spoke about Rob's willingness to speak out. "To have that voice go quiet in an instant is still hard for me to comprehend," he told The New Yorker.

Who Rob and Michele were

Rob Reiner first became famous as Michael "Meathead" Stivic on All in the Family, then directed This Is Spinal Tap, Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally..., Misery and A Few Good Men.

Michele Singer Reiner was a photographer and producer. The couple met on the set of When Harry Met Sally..., where she worked as a still photographer, and married in 1989. Their three children are Jake, Nick and Romy.

Rob led the 1998 campaign for California's Proposition 10, a tobacco tax that created First 5 California to fund early childhood programs, and later chaired the commission. The Children's Institute credits the Reiners with helping establish it, and Rob emceed the group's 2023 gala.

What happened

Rob and Michele were found dead at their Brentwood home in Los Angeles on Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. Police called the case a homicide.

Their son Nick was charged with two counts of first-degree murder. A grand jury indictment, returned in July and unsealed in August, followed the original charges. He has pleaded not guilty and is presumed innocent. He remains in custody, and no trial date has been set. In September, prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty.

Timeline

Friends who spoke out

Billy Crystal has also talked about the loss. He told Stephen Colbert in April, "We had spent the night before together," and called Rob "the most human person that I ever met."

Read more: Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan Reunite at His Broadway Show '860'