Michael McKean is still processing the shocking death of his friend Rob Reiner, who was murdered along with his wife Michelle Singer Reiner in December 2025.
“I’m still building it up,” he exclusively told Page Six at a press day for his off-Broadway show, “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been,” scheduled for earlier this week. “It was a tough time.”
The 78-year-old “Better Call Saul” alum met Reiner in 1969 through David Lander. Lander later starred opposite McKean in “Laverne & Shirley.”
McKean said he and Reiner were “quite close.
“He was fun to be around, a great guy, always laughing, always ready to eat,” the director of “When Harry Met Sally” once said, recalling when he called him a “genius.”
“Because I brought a five-pound bag of pistachios to a meeting,” McKean recalled with a laugh. “He was a beautiful person.”
And the “Best in Show” star spoke equally glowingly about Reiner’s wife, Michele.
“His wife was very good, very competent, very disciplined when it came to the projects we worked on,” he fondly remembers.
McKean played David St. Hubbins in Reiner’s 1984 film This is Spinal Tap, and reprized the role in last year’s Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.
Rob, 78, and Michelle, 70, were found stabbed to death inside their Brentwood home in December last year. Shortly after, her troubled son Nick, 32, was arrested and charged with multiple counts of murder and two counts of first-degree murder with the special circumstance of personal use of a knife.
McKean paid an emotional tribute to the late actor and director at this year’s Oscars ceremony, where he was joined by stars from his other films, including Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan from When Harry Met Sally, Kathy Bates from Misery, Fred Savage from The Princess Bride, Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin and Carol Kane.
He stood alongside fellow “Spinal Tap” star Christopher Guest.
The “A Mighty Wind” star is set to perform in a revival of “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been” at New York City Center. The performance features an original recording of an artist who was summoned to a hearing before the House Un-American Activities Committee and faced the impossible task of naming a colleague suspected of being a “communist” or never working again.
