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Did the FBI discover a secret tunnel under Rob Reiner’s Brentwood mansion? No, that’s not true: There is no credible information to support this claim. The day after Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were murdered, clickbait videos began to surface on YouTube claiming the FBI found a tunnel under their home. Some of these videos had titles identical to other copycat clickbait which has appeared in recent months naming Gene Hackman, Robert Redford, “Pawn Stars” star Rick Harrison, streamer Hasan Piker, and accused assassin Tyler Robinson.
One example of the video (archived here) was published by the YouTube channel The Secret on Dec. 16, 2025. It was titled:
This is the thumbnail image included with the video:
An Image search using Google Lens for the tunnel image pictured on the right side of the thumbnail surfaced four results (pictured below). These results demonstrate that the tunnel image is not specific to a Rob Reiner news story but is part of a clickbait formula. For months YouTube channels have been churning out nearly identical fake stories using the names of people in the news. One video (archived here) posted on March 6, 2025 is titled, “FBI Discovers a Secret Tunnel Under Gene Hackman’s Mansion – What They Found Will Shock You!” Another video (archived here) posted on April 8, 2025 has an AI-generated voiceover in Polish. YouTube translated the Polish title to English, “TUNNEL 701: The FBI Discovery Beneath Rick Harrison’s Mansion That Changed the Face of America”.
A search on YouTube (archived here) for the phrase, “FBI discovers secret tunnel” produced even more results. The videos are not identical, and the AI-generated narrative varies — it’s the drawn out stalling for time to earn YouTube ad revenue on long-form videos that is the common thread.
A Gene Hackman version of the video (archived here) from March of 2025 has a thumbnail image claiming “He was a psychopath” and nearly the same title as the Reiner video: “FBI Discovers Secret Tunnel Under Gene Hackman’s Mansion, They Turn Pale When They See Whats Inside”. A Sept. 19, 2025 video (archived here) has another version of that title, but this time naming Robert Redford. Another video (archived here) posted on Oct. 23, 2025 with the same “They Turn Pale” version of the title, targets Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. An Oct. 18, 2025 video (archived here) claimed, “FBI Discovers Secret Tunnel Under Tyler Robinson’s House”.
The Redford version of the clickbait trope has a disclaimer which shows in the first seconds of the video (pictured below). It reads:
Not all of the YouTube channels are forthcoming with a disclaimer. The channel The Secret (archived here) which posted the false video about a tunnel under Rob Reiner’s house has this as part of their channel description:
The channel UK Daily Coffee (archived here) which published a Reiner version of the fake video does have a disclaimer that their content is not factual. The Dec. 15, 2025 video claimed that not only was there a tunnel under the Reiner home, but FBI agents found three preserved dead bodies in it. The disclaimer reads in part:
A search on the FBI website news page, filtering for Los Angeles and 2025 (pictured below) shows that there have not been any FBI press releases about the case or the mansion since the Reiners were found dead in their home on Dec. 14, 2025.
