Ex-Roommate Of 'Entitled Monster' Nick Reiner Details 'Chilling' Experience At Luxury Rehab Centre

In the summer of 2009, Danny Svilar, a troubled 15-year-old, arrived at a prestigious California rehabilitation facility after his mother staged an intervention following a devastating shopping addiction that had racked up £250,000 on his father's credit card.

What he encountered in that first rehab room would become an unsettling window into the mind of someone the world would later know as an accused killer. His roommate was Nick Reiner—and from the beginning, something felt deeply wrong.

'He Had No Sense of Gratitude Whatsoever'

Svilar, now 32 and recovered from his own addiction, has broken his silence about those harrowing weeks shared with the Hollywood director's son. The Wyoming restaurateur claims Nick was fundamentally unlike other privileged teenagers at the facility, not because he suffered more, but because he appreciated less. Whilst his parents—acclaimed director Rob Reiner and producer Michele Singer—attended every single family group session without fail, financing his treatment at a staggering $60,000 per month, Nick appeared consumed by a seething anger towards them.

'He just had really oppressed anger towards the fame,' Svilar told The Daily Mail. 'I don't know how it is having a father with that level of fame, but regardless of that, Nick had no sense of gratitude, no sense of appreciation. He was just a f------ pompous little punk... he just wanted to be out, smoking pot, doing pills, doing whatever, and his family just wanted him to get help.'

What struck Svilar most was the contradiction. The other teenagers in the facility—many from wealthy backgrounds—had absent parents who relied entirely on nannies and hired handlers. Yet Rob and Michele Reiner were present, engaged, and genuinely invested in their son's recovery.

'The parents of these children with money, they usually are not truly involved in wanting to help them,' Svilar explained. 'They have a hired hand, basically, being their handler, if you will. But Rob and Michele were there for every single family group. They were there for every therapy session. They didn't have to give me the time of day. I played frisbee with Rob. Rob Reiner, for God's sake. They just wanted to get him well.'

Yet Nick regularly ranted about 'how much he hated his f------ parents.' This wasn't the grumbling of a typical teenager—it was something darker, more volatile.

The Rage That Shocked a Teenager

What began as a seemingly friendly dynamic between roommates transformed into something frightening. On one occasion, Svilar made an offhand comparison that would trigger a shocking display of aggression. 'I compared him to looking like John Travolta's son that died, and that set him off,' Svilar said, referring to the actor's late son, Jett Travolta.

Nick erupted. 'We had good rapport at first, but then I was like 'oh my god, that's who you remind me of,' and it kind of turned ugly after that,' Svilar recounted. 'He definitely tried to get aggressive with me. He tried to get physical, and then a tech had to step in. He was getting into my face and raising a fist.' The incident was severe enough that the two were separated.

During their final nights together, Svilar said the late-night conversations between them felt deeply unsettling. 'We would talk at night after lights were out, and some of the things that he would say really threw me the wrong way. Because I'm a 15-year-old boy in the same room as somebody with a crazy addiction. It was very, very chilling, but also, a crazy new experience for me.'

Now, following the brutal deaths of Rob Reiner and Michele Singer—found stabbed in their $13.5 million Brentwood mansion on 14 December—Svilar's fears have crystallised into something far more sinister. Nick is accused of their murders. When Svilar heard the news, he says he knew immediately who was responsible. 'Whether he relapsed, or whether it was his mental disorder,' he said, 'I knew exactly who it was.'