Media Megyn Kelly suggests Rob Reiner’s son Nick could try Menendez-style abuse defense in parents’ murder case

Megyn Kelly floated a controversial theory about the defense strategy Nick Reiner could pursue as he faces murder charges in the killing of his parents — suggesting he may try to echo the infamous Menendez brothers case by accusing his father of abuse.

Kelly made the remarks Wednesday on her SiriusXM podcast, “The Megyn Kelly Show,” while discussing the case against the 32-year-old son of filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, who were found stabbed to death inside their Brentwood home earlier this month.

“It’s not going to work for Nick Reiner, it’s just not,” Kelly said, before laying out what she described as an “out-of-left-field prediction” about how the defense could proceed.

Kelly stressed she was not accusing Rob Reiner of wrongdoing and said she did not personally believe any abuse occurred.

“In no way am I imputing Rob Reiner, nor do I believe there’s anything untoward,” Kelly said.

“I think he seems, by all accounts, a loving father and an appropriate father.”

But Kelly said the high-profile Menendez brothers case — in which Lyle and Erik Menendez claimed years of sexual abuse by their father after killing their parents in Beverly Hills — had been on her mind as she reviewed reporting around the Reiner case.

“This is like out-of-left-field prediction, and it’s just because the Menendez case is on my mind, because that’s also California, and this is what triggered it,” Kelly said.

Kelly cited a Daily Mail report that she said included comments from an actor who described the on-set dynamic between Rob Reiner and his son Nick as “troubling” during the making of a film they worked on together.

“They were fighting. They were arguing with each other while they were on the set,” Kelly said of the unnamed actor.

Kelly said the actor claimed his scenes were later cut from the film, and described behavior he found uncomfortable.

“They were kissing each other on the lips, which was weird,” Kelly said.

“They bickered, or they were bickering. They were going off on each other on set. It wasn’t comfortable. There was definitely hostility there.”

Kelly then posed what she described as a key question about whether Nick Reiner’s legal team might attempt to draw on a strategy similar to the Menendez defense.

“So my question is, is there a likelihood Nick Reiner pulls a card from the Menendez defense, we’re in California, it’s going to be a California jury, and says ‘He was molesting me my whole life,’” Kelly said.

“’That’s why I was so messed up from the time I was 10, that’s why I got hooked on drugs,’” she continued.

“There’s no way of disproving that, and plays the sympathy card with a California jury about why, from a very young age, he was all messed up.”

Nick Reiner has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances in the deaths of his parents.

Prosecutors have alleged the killings involved the use of a knife, exposing him to the possibility of life in prison without parole or the death penalty.

Kelly framed her comments as speculation about how defense attorneys sometimes operate in cases they believe are otherwise unwinnable.

“This is going to be a desperation defense,” Kelly said.

She pointed to reports about alleged evidence against Nick Reiner, suggesting his legal situation could be dire if those details hold up in court.