Michele Singer Reiner, photographer who inspired 1980s rom-com's happy
end, dies
[December 16, 2025]
By HANNAH SCHOENBAUM and SARAH BRUMFIELD
Michele Singer Reiner, a photographer, movie producer and advocate for
LGBTQ+ rights who inspired the happy conclusion to the 1980s romantic
comedy “When Harry Met Sally…,” has died.
She and her husband, director Rob Reiner, were found stabbed to death
Sunday at their home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. The
Reiners’ 32-year-old son, Nick Reiner, was arrested on suspicion of
murder and held without bail Monday in connection with their deaths.
Michele Singer was working as a still photographer and Rob Reiner was
directing “When Harry Met Sally...” when they met on the film's set.
Within seven months, the couple had married. They had three children:
Nick, Jake and Romy.
Rob Reiner told The Guardian in 2018 that meeting his wife influenced
his decision to change the ending of the movie so that Harry and Sally
got married.
“Originally, Harry and Sally didn’t get together,” he said. “But then I
met Michele and I thought: OK, I see how this works.”
As a photographer, Michele Singer Reiner shot the cover image of
President Donald Trump for his 1987 bestseller “The Art of the Deal.”
She went on to work on the 1990 horror film “Misery” as a special
photographer.
Later, she was a producer for “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues,” “God &
Country,” “Albert Brooks: Defending My Life” and “Shock and Awe,”
according to IMDB.
“Michele was an enormously talented photographer whose eye applied not
only to what she captured on film but also to her own personal
esthetic,” actor, singer and producer Rita Wilson wrote in a social
media tribute. “Her work as a producer focused on social justice and
creating awareness of our world. She was wry, funny, opinionated but
also reasonable and self reflective.”
Trump on Monday blamed Rob Reiner’s outspoken opposition to him for the
couple's killings, sharing the unsubstantiated claim in a social media
post that drew criticism even from some prominent conservatives. He did
not mention his personal connection to Michele Singer Reiner.
Wilson, who had roles in “Sleepless in Seattle” and the Rob
Reiner-directed “The Story of Us,” said she and husband Tom Hanks have
been friends with the Reiners since their children were toddlers. In her
Instagram post, she reminisced about the couple's screening parties in
which they paired themed foods and discussions with classic films.
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Rony Reiner, left, Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner attend the
Friars Club Entertainment Icon Award ceremony honoring Billy Crystal
at the Ziegfeld Ballroom, Nov. 12, 2018, in New York. (Photo by
Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)
As for her social justice advocacy,
Michele Singer Reiner had said she was inspired in part by her
mother, a Holocaust survivor.
The Reiners were board members of the American Foundation for Equal
Rights, which organized and funded federal court challenges to
California’s 2008 same-sex marriage ban, Proposition 8.
A fellow board member, screenwriter and director Dustin Lance Black,
later worked with Rob Reiner on the play “8” about the federal trial
that got the proposition overturned. With the couple’s deaths, Black
said, “The world has lost two of its greatest champions of justice,
love and equality. I have lost two of the most spectacular human
beings I will ever know.”
Kelley Robinson, president of the LGBTQ+ political advocacy
organization Human Rights Campaign, also reflected on their
unwavering allyship.
“So many in our movement remember how Rob and Michele organized
their peers, brought strategists and lawyers together and helped
power landmark Supreme Court decisions that made marriage equality
the law of the land — and they remained committed to the cause until
their final days," Robinson said.
Rob Reiner had said his wife was a driving force behind the couple’s
activism: “There’s just too much injustice in the world, and she
wants to fix it all.”
He told The New York Times in 1989 that the cinematographer on “When
Harry Met Sally...,” Barry Sonnenfeld, predicted he would marry her.
She had visited the set with Sonnenfeld’s then-fiancee, during a
scene when the characters were having an argument, Rob Reiner said.
“I look over and I see this girl, and whoo! I was attracted
immediately,” he said. “I wormed my way into their lunch. But that’s
what he said to me: ‘You’re going to marry her.’ And one thing led
to another and here we are.”
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