Actor and comedian Billy Crystal says he no longer trusts God after a wildfire destroyed his longtime home and his close friend Rob Reiner was killed.
“No, ’cause I don’t trust Him,” Crystal told correspondent Tracy Smith during an Oct. 11 “CBS Sunday Morning” interview. “Too many bad things have happened. The Earth is in bad shape. This is a weird, scary time.”
The admission marked a change from his earlier stage production, “700 Sundays,” which included conversations with God while recounting his father’s death.
His grief over Reiner continues to surface in moments he once would have shared with his friend. After the first full rehearsal of his new Broadway show, “860,” Crystal headed upstairs to his dressing room.
“I felt so good,” he told PEOPLE in an interview published Oct. 14. “And my first thought was, ‘I’ve got to call Rob.’”
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The January 2025 Palisades fire destroyed the home Crystal and his wife, Janice, had shared for 46 years, raising their children and welcoming their grandchildren.
“I stepped onto the grounds and fell to my knees and I wailed,” Crystal said at the January 2025 FireAid benefit, according to Fox News.
That December, Rob and Michele Reiner were killed in their Los Angeles home.
“It’s a profound loss for, I’m just gonna say humanity, because he was the most human person that I ever met,” Crystal told Stephen Colbert in April, according to TheWrap.
“860,” named after Crystal’s former home’s street address, explores his losses. Reiner helped choose the title, leaving a personal connection to the production.
“This is still fresh and ongoing,” Crystal told PEOPLE.
Scripture speaks directly to such pain: “The Lord is near to the broken-hearted, and saves the contrite of spirit” (Ps. 34:18, MEV).
Pray for Crystal and his family as they grieve. Ask God to heal their wounded hearts, surround them with loving support and draw them into the comfort and peace of Jesus Christ.
James Lasher, a seasoned writer and editor at Charisma Media, combines faith and storytelling with a journalism background from Otterbein University and ministry experience in Guatemala and at the LA Dream Center. A Marine Corps and Air Force veteran, he is the author of The Revelation of Jesus: A Common Man’s Commentary and a contributor to Charisma magazine. For interviews and media inquiries, please contact [email protected].
