Renowned for his cinematic masterpieces, Scorsese shared his grief and the void left by their passing. “Rob Reiner was my friend, and so was Michele. From now on, I’ll have to use the past tense, and that fills me with such profound sadness. But there’s no other choice,” he lamented, capturing the depth of his sorrow.

The tragic news broke on December 14, when the couple was discovered dead in their Los Angeles residence. The shock reverberated through Hollywood, leading to an arrest in the case. The Los Angeles Police Department apprehended 32-year-old Nick Reiner, who has been charged in connection to the fatalities.

The Reiners’ untimely demise left a gaping hole in the hearts of many, sparking an outpouring of tributes and fond remembrances from fans, friends, and colleagues who admired and cherished them. Their legacy in the entertainment industry, as well as their personal impact on those who knew them, remains indelible.

The Reiner’s sudden death shocked Hollywood and prompted an outpouring of love and memories from fans, friends and colleagues.

“What happened to Rob and Michele is an obscenity, an abyss in lived reality,” he said. “The only thing that will help me to accept it is the passing of time.”

In the article, he recalled how he met Rob Reiner through mutual friends in the early 1970s. The two bonded over being from the East Coast, with Reiner being from The Bronx, New York and Scorsese from Flushing, New York.

He said Reiner had “New York humor” and it was “in the air I breathed.”

“Right away, I loved hanging out with Rob. We had a natural affinity for each other. He was hilarious and sometimes bitingly funny, but he was never the kind of guy who would take over the room,” Scorsese wrote. “He had a beautiful sense of uninhibited freedom, fully enjoying the life of the moment, and he had a great barreling laugh.”

He recalled times where Reiner’s laugh bellowed through auditoriums during speeches and honors, and why he cast him in “The Wolf of Wall Street.” 

“I immediately thought of Rob to play Leonardo DiCaprio’s father,” he wrote. “He could improvise with the best, he was a master at comedy.”

He said it now breaks his heart to even think of the tenderness of Reiner’s performances. 

“So, like all of their loved ones and their friends — and these were people with many, many friends — I have to be allowed to imagine them alive and well and that one day, I’ll be at a dinner or a party and find myself seated next to Rob, and I’ll hear his laugh and see his beatific face and laugh at his stories and relish his natural comic timing, and feel lucky all over again to have him as a friend,” Scorsese ended the piece with. 

He was one of many big names to mourn the couple, which included Gov. Gavin Newsom and Elijah Wood among others.