Conan O’Brien has shared an insight into how the 98th Academy Awards will honor the late director Rob Reiner.
Speaking to Extra on Thursday, March 12, the Oscars host, 62, described the upcoming tribute to Reiner as “hard to sum up.”
O’Brien added of what to expect, “But it’s going to be a very powerful part of the show.”
The comedian is hosting the Oscars for the second consecutive year on Sunday, March 15, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
Rob and his wife, photographer Michele Singer Reiner, were found dead with multiple stab wounds in their Brentwood, California home in December 2025. They were 78 and 70, respectively.
Rob and Michele’s son, Nick Reiner, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances in connection with his parents’ death. He has pleaded not guilty and is currently being held without bond while he awaits trial.
The couple had attended O’Brien’s holiday party earlier that night where they had a fight with their son.
Earlier this week, O’Brien made a rare comment acknowledging that his name had been tied to news of the Reiners’ deaths due their attendance at his party.
“Very simply, we had a party, we invited our really good friends and then, the next day, this terrible thing happened,” O’Brien told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published on Monday, March 9.
While the talk show host acknowledged there were “difficulties” when it came to often being mentioned when the Reiners’ deaths are reported on, he said it was not comparable to the tragedy of the loss of his friends.
“Whatever difficulties my wife and I have experienced having our name attached to it are nothing compared to the scale of the tragedy for the family and the loss of Rob and Michele,” he added.
O’Brien continued: “If you’re a known person, your name is going to get dragged into things sometimes, but it is not a hardship. There is only sadness that they’re gone.”
In February, O’Brien first spoke about Rob and Michele’s deaths in an interview with David Remnick for The New Yorker.
“I knew Rob and Michele, and then increasingly got closer and closer to them, and I was seeing them a lot,” O’Brien said. “My wife and I were seeing them a lot, and they were so — they were just such lovely people. And to have that experience of saying goodnight to somebody and having them leave and then find out the next day that they’re gone.”
He continued: “I think I was in shock for quite a while afterward. I mean, there’s no other word for it. It’s just very — it’s so awful. It’s just so awful. And I think about how Rob felt about things that are happening in the country, how involved he was, how much he put himself out there — and to have that voice go quiet in an instant is still hard for me to comprehend.”
