“Rob had this reputation for getting the best out of people, and if you watch his films, you know that,” Meyers told his late-night show audience, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Following the death of Rob Reiner (Stand By Me, Flipped) alongside his wife, Michele, Seth Meyers paid tribute to him by speaking about the joy he brought to his movie audiences. The Hollywood Reporter states that Meyers specifically mentioned the impact of his 1984 mockumentary comedy film, This Is Spinal Tap.

Meyers used his Monday night Late Night With Seth Meyers monologue to recall the moment he watched Rob Reiner’s first directed film on HBO via The Hollywood Reporter. Sitting on the couch with his parents when he was about 11 or 12, Meyers said the viewing experience led to a sudden realization of what comedic storytelling truly was.

“I feel as though [Reiner] reached out of the television to me, and I’m sure so many other people like me, and said, ‘You should do this. You should try this in your life. It’s as much fun as it looks,” Meyers said.

The Hollywood Reporter explained that Reiner and his wife, Michele, were killed on Sunday. Their son, Nick Reiner, is a main suspect and has been arrested and booked on suspicion of murder.

 

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Meyers noted that while he doesn’t know the Reiners intimately, his time spent with them confirmed they were “delightful people to be in a room with.” He then shared a separate anecdote about attending Norman Lear’s 100th birthday party, where the legendary comedic producer was momentarily at a loss for words when asked by an audience member how his Hollywood career began, according to The Hollywood Reporter. 

“We were all patiently waiting. And then Rob just yelled out from the back of the room. He said, ‘Norman, tell them the story of how you once hid in a birthday present!’” Reiner kept peppering Lear for more career recollections because, via The Hollywood Reporter, as Meyers explained, “Rob had this reputation for getting the best out of people, and if you watch his films, you know that is something he had this skill with.”

“But to see him in person and know that’s what it was like in his real life as well, it was just truly special to see,” Meyers added.

President Donald Trump posted a rant on social media about Reiner’s death, and Meyers did not hold back when commenting on this.

“I feared this was something he was going to do. But it was even worse than I could have imagined. The President made it about himself, because he’s incapable about making it about anything else,” Meyers insisted, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He added that Trump had said “the Reiners were reportedly murdered because of their feelings about him, even though no one had reported that.”

Meyers said when he first heard of the deaths, he thought, “’ Oh My God, what if this happened because of Rob and Michele’s politics?’ And then I thought, ‘What if it happened because they were Jewish?’ And what a terrible time we live in where these are the thoughts that rationally come into one’s head when something like this happens, and what a good time it would be to have a leader with a moral compass,” via The Hollywood Reporter. 

The Hollywood Reporter said He wanted to celebrate Reiner before anything else during this monologue and said as “a man who set an example, and there’s such a value to that, and we have to do everything we can to not make setting an example a lost art.”

Jimmy Kimmel also made similar comments during his Monday show, saying, “What we need in a time like this, besides common sense when it comes to guns and mental healthcare, is compassion and leadership. We did not get that from our president because he has none of it to give. Instead we got a fool rambling about nonsense, we got a brief moment of respect for our friends in Australia, we got a brief moment of condolence followed by a ‘thing happened’ for the students at Brown and for Rob and Michele Reiner,” via The Hollywood Reporter.