Claim:
Investigators announced they had discovered secret rooms and tunnels underneath Rob Reiner’s house following his death in December 2025.
Rating:
On Dec. 14, 2025, law enforcement officials discovered director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, fatally stabbed in their home. Their son Nick Reiner was charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the killings.
In the days following the famed director’s death, a rumor about Reiner’s home began to spread on social media. According to the rumor, which originated on YouTube (archived), the FBI discovered secret tunnels and rooms under the Reiners’ mansion that made the agents “turn pale” when they saw what was inside. The thumbnail of another video (archived) posted by the same YouTube channel claimed, without specifics, “17 DEAD WOMEN FOUND.”
The claim also spread on TikTok, most notably through a set (archived) of three (archived) videos (archived), and on Facebook (archived). A Snopes reader emailed us to ask if the claim was true.
The rumor was false. There was no evidence of the claim, the social media posts didn’t actually elaborate on the allegations and the rumor was spread by accounts that frequently post made-up stories.
As usual when researching the authenticity of shocking claims, Snopes began by doing a simple search for news reports about the allegations. A Google search for “secret tunnel in rob reiner house” returned no related results except for social media posts spreading the rumor, usually word for word.
Snopes then checked the original YouTube video for any details that may help narrow the search. The supposed secret tunnels under the Reiners’ mansion weren’t referenced after the 7:00 mark even though the video was 22 minutes long. The video never actually explained what was allegedly found within the tunnels beyond rumors of “confidential conversations” and “clandestine meetings.”
The video didn’t appear to have any images or clips of these secret tunnels and rooms, either. A clip of a tunnel at 5:21 was stock footage made to depict a tunnel in a post-apocalyptic bunker. The other short clip of what appeared to be a secret room ended with what appeared to be a computer-generated alien or monster in a doorway, although Snopes could not find the source of the clip. The video’s description contained an “Altered or synthetic content” warning.
That video was posted by a YouTube channel called The Secret (archived), which appeared to habitually post multiple 30-minute videos of imagined shocking discoveries each day. The other video it apparently posted about the tunnels, the with the thumbnail about 17 dead women, did not actually make any mention of secret tunnels or rooms, or of 17 dead women. The video instead dramatized the discovery of Nick Reiner as the suspect in the couple’s slayings followed by what was essentially a celebration of Rob Reiner’s life.
The TikTok videos just reused the narration from the original YouTube video and paired the audio with different visuals. They were posted by a TikTok account (archived) that similarly specialized in peddling fabricated revelations.
The Facebook post came with a link to a blog post hosted on a seemingly random URL, which is common in the false stories about celebrities and politicians common on the website. Within the blog post, the name “Reiner” became “Rainer.” Similarly, “Nick” became “Nathan.” Like in the other social media posts, the blog post did not specify what was discovered in these purported secret tunnels.
However, an unloaded image within the archived version of the blog post did reveal descriptive text written in Vietnamese. Snopes has previously reported on the proliferation of fake stories that originate from Vietnam or elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
The rumor about Reiner was just the latest in a string of fabricated claims asserting celebrities have had secret tunnels under their homes discovered after their deaths. Snopes has previously fact-checked similar claims about the actor Gene Hackman and UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, as well as other rumors about Rob Reiner following his death.
