As tributes pour in for filmmaker Rob Reiner following the apparent double homicide of him and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner—with their son Nick accused in the case—attention has turned to his political activism, including a 2020 online fundraiser linked to Joe Biden’s narrow win in battleground Wisconsin.
Rob Reiner, 78, and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were found dead in their Brentwood, Los Angeles, home on December 14, 2025, with apparent stab wounds. Police opened a homicide investigation, and their son Nick Reiner, 32, was arrested later that day and subsequently charged with two counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances, according to Los Angeles County prosecutors and police reports. He is being held without bail and has not yet entered a plea, and the case remains under investigation.
Amid reflections on Reiner’s life and work, commentators and political allies have highlighted his role in the 2020 presidential campaign, particularly in Wisconsin. As detailed by The Nation, Wisconsin had backed Democrats in presidential elections from 1988 through 2012 before narrowly supporting Donald Trump in 2016 by 22,748 votes, making it a central battleground four years later. State Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler was seeking ways to mobilize support for Joe Biden and the Democratic ticket.
Wikler, working closely with Reiner, organized a major online fundraiser on September 13, 2020: a live dramatic reading of the script from Reiner’s 1987 film The Princess Bride. The Nation reports that the event, streamed on Zoom and other platforms, featured original cast members including Mandy Patinkin, Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, and others. The performance drew about 142,000 viewers and raised in excess of $4.25 million for the Wisconsin Democratic Party, which party officials described as one of the largest state-level fundraisers in U.S. history and a boost to grassroots organizing in the state.
Reiner, known for directing This Is Spinal Tap (1984), Stand by Me (1986), When Harry Met Sally... (1989), Misery (1990), A Few Good Men (1992), and The American President (1995), had long been active in progressive politics. As The Nation notes, he campaigned for liberal candidates and causes over several decades, with particular focus on LGBTQ+ rights and access to education, and he was a vocal critic of Trump, whom he described as an authoritarian threat to U.S. democratic norms.
Reflecting on Reiner’s political engagement after his death, Wikler told The Nation that Reiner “felt, to his core, that the light of democracy was the thing that made every other kind of progress possible,” and said that sense of urgency helped draw Hollywood talent into the Princess Bride fundraiser. Wikler also recalled that Reiner remained deeply engaged in political strategy and voter outreach plans in the years following the 2020 election.
For many Democrats, the 2020 Princess Bride event became an emblem of how Reiner used his Hollywood stature to advance political causes, marrying popular culture with electoral organizing in a state that would prove decisive in Biden’s path to the White House.
