Jamie Lee Curtis says she has grown much closer to Jake and Romy Reiner since their parents passed away. Speaking to Extra on Friday, November 5, the actress described the siblings plainly. “Of course, I mean, we are family,” she said.
Curtis was a close friend of Rob and Michele Reiner. The couple passed away in late December 2025, at 78 and 70.
Jamie Lee Curtis Opens Up About Her Connection With the Reiners
Curtis did not dress it up. She told Extra that a loss like this pulls people together, and that she now counts the Reiner children as her own family.
Family is a word people use loosely about friends. Curtis used it about two adults whose lives changed overnight in December, and she used it almost a year later, when most of the public attention had moved on. Showing up in the first week is common. Saying it on camera eleven months later is something else.
The Reiner Siblings After December
Jake Reiner has spoken about the loss more than once. In an interview with KABC-TV’s Mark Cota-Robles, shared on Good Morning America on August 27, he said eight months had felt like eight years and, at the same time, like eight minutes.
He described waking up every morning and being reminded of his reality all over again.
Jake also wrote about that time in a Substack essay published in April. In it, he recalled that he was at a celebration of life for a close friend at Union Station on December 14 when his sister Romy called him. In the GMA interview, he summed up where things stand for the two of them in four words. Now, it’s me and Romy.
Two siblings. That is the family Curtis says she belongs to now.
Jamie Lee Curtis gave Extra one specific image. She and Jake had recently sat shoulder to shoulder doing an interview together, she said, and simply feeling him beside her was emotional.
Then he started talking about his parents, and about what she called their fantastic relationship.
Nothing in that moment was dramatic. Two people side by side, one of them describing a marriage the other had watched up close for years. Curtis knew Rob and Michele as a couple. Jake knew them as his parents. Sitting together, they were the two people in the room who could see the whole picture.
Support and Family Bonds in Times of Grief
Curtis and her husband, Christopher Guest, set the tone back in December. In a statement shared with Us Weekly, the couple said they were numb, sad and shocked, and that their focus was entirely on the Reiner children and immediate family. They promised all the support they could offer.
Their statement put the public legacy on hold. Rob and Michele’s work in entertainment, early childhood development and the fight for marriage equality could be discussed later, the couple wrote. They asked for time to grieve.
Eleven months on, Jamie Lee Curtis is describing what that support turned into. Friendship with parents rarely carries over to their grown children by default. Someone has to keep calling, keep showing up for the interview, keep sitting close enough to feel the other person there. Curtis is describing exactly that, a friendship with Rob and Michele that became a family tie with Jake and Romy.
Jake’s interviews and essay remain the clearest record of how the siblings are living with the loss.
