Jake and Romy Reiner Present the First Award in Their Parents’ Names to Jamie Lee Curtis

Jake and Romy Reiner stood in a Beverly Hills ballroom on Sunday, Nov. 8, to hand out an award named for their parents, and gave it to the family friend who has been among their most visible supporters.

The siblings presented Jamie Lee Curtis with the inaugural Michele & Rob Reiner Champion for Change Award at Children’s Institute’s Cape & Gown Gala at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, according to a release from the nonprofit. More than 600 guests attended, and the evening raised a record $4 million. John Mayer performed, Chelsea Handler spoke, and Barry Sonnenfeld, the cinematographer on “When Harry Met Sally…” and “Misery,” was master of ceremonies. Sonnenfeld is also the friend who introduced Rob Reiner to Michele Singer.

“I love the name for this award: Champion for Change. That’s what our parents stood for,” Jake Reiner, 35, said, according to the release. “The work my parents did for children started at home, creating a loving environment for us from the moment I was born and long after Romy was born.”

Romy Reiner, 28, spoke about Curtis. “Her love and generosity during this time have meant more to me than she’ll ever know,” she said. “I truly feel that there isn’t a person better to receive this than Jamie.”

Curtis accepted with a line about the couple. “Rob and Michele lived so fiercely, so loudly,” she said. “They were undeniable.” The award was created with Martine Singer, the siblings’ aunt, who is the institute’s president and chief executive. It recognizes the Reiners’ work on early childhood, including the campaign that created First 5 California, and their role in the federal challenge to California’s same-sex marriage ban.

Before the gala, Curtis described her bond with the siblings. “Of course, I mean, we are family,” she told Extra in an interview published Nov. 6. “Something like this brings people so much closer. Jake and I were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder doing an interview, and just feeling him there is emotional.” She said she wanted the evening to be “joyful” and “celebratory,” not a memorial, and noted that there has not yet been a large public memorial for the couple. Curtis and her husband, Christopher Guest, were married at Rob Reiner’s house in 1984, with Reiner as best man, she told The Hollywood Reporter.

Rob Reiner, 78, and Michele Singer Reiner, 70, were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood home on Dec. 14, 2025. Their son Nick Reiner, 33, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder with special-circumstance allegations of multiple murders and lying in wait. In September, District Attorney Nathan Hochman said his office would not seek the death penalty. He said Jake and Romy had made their views “very clear” and that prosecutors took “their views into consideration,” ABC News reported. The siblings have also asked that grand jury transcripts stay sealed, saying disclosure would cause them further trauma, according to Hochman. No trial date has been set, and Hochman has said a trial is unlikely before 2027.

A separate fight is under way in probate court over a trust Nick Reiner’s parents set up for him in 1993. The successor trustee argues that California’s slayer statute bars him from collecting and that his share should pass to his siblings if the statute applies. Jake and Romy have not been reported as parties to that filing. The dispute is set for mediation Dec. 16.

The siblings had made few public appearances before this year. In August, they threw ceremonial first pitches at Dodger Stadium in their parents’ honor, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Mark Groubert was unsentimental about the gala on Wednesday’s show. He questioned whether the siblings’ appearance was still rare and noted the new role they had taken on. “They never did this before the death of their parents. They’re now presenting awards,” he said. He listed their recent public moments, including the Dodger Stadium pitches, their stated opposition to the death penalty for their brother, and the trust litigation.

He also found Curtis’s “we are family” remark hard to parse. He characterized Curtis and Guest as having taken on a parental role for the siblings, emotionally if not legally.

Groubert framed what he saw as a broader pattern among the children of celebrities. “These people are on a collision course with celebrity, the drug of choice for many of the kids of celebrities,” he said. He predicted that the siblings would be approached by many people hoping to make films, documentaries, plays or books about their parents. He expected them to take part and to promote those projects. “This is where they seem to have decided to go with their lives,” he said. Neither sibling has announced any such project.

He said he would keep following the family’s story through Nick Reiner’s trial.