Billy Crystal Found One Key Thing After His Home Burned Down in the L.A. Fires: ‘That’s What’s Gotten Me Through Tough Times’ (Exclusive)
Billy Crystal Found One Key Thing After His Home Burned Down in the L.A. Fires: ‘That’s What’s Gotten Me Through Tough Times’ (Exclusive)
Liz McNeilWed, October 14, 2026 at 12:00 PM UTC
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Billy Crystal shot at the Imperial Theater in NYC on Sept. 28, 2026.Credit: Martin Schoeller -
Billy Crystal opens up to PEOPLE in this week’s cover story after losing his home in the 2025 Los Angeles fires
Crystal’s solo show 860 opens Oct. 21 and uses comedy to process the fire and recent losses
The actor says he and his wife Janice plan to rebuild the Pacific Palisades home where they raised their two daughters
One week after the January 2025 wildfires in the Pacific Palisades destroyed his family home, Billy Crystal returned to his neighborhood.
Where once stood the 1930s ranch house that he and his wife, Janice, 77, had bought in 1979 to raise their daughters Jenny, now 53, and Lindsay, 48, only rubble — and memories — remained.
“All you could see were skeletons of trees and chimneys, the ones that hadn’t fallen, stuff blowing in the streets, nobody around,” Crystal, 78, tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story. “It was like an episode of The Walking Dead, like this thing had just come through and wiped out everything.”
As all four surveyed the ruins together, Lindsay spotted a rock from their garden that had survived the flames. On it was engraved one word: “Laughter.”
“That’s what’s gotten me through tough times starting when I was 15 when my father died,” says Crystal on a recent rainy afternoon at New York City’s Imperial Theatre, where his new one-man show 860, named for the street address of his beloved home, opens on Oct. 21.
Writing the script and stacking it with some of the funniest moments of his life and career was a way to cope with the devastation.
“It wasn’t just, ‘Oh, I’m going to make a play out of this,’ ” he says. “No, it was healing me at the same time.”
Billy Crystal shot at the Imperial Theater in NYC on Sept. 28, 2026.Credit: Martin Schoeller
Rob Reiner, whom Crystal calls “the friend of a lifetime,” encouraged him as he put the show together. Then, 11 months after the fires, came further heartbreak, the shocking murders of Reiner and his wife, Michele.
Crystal had written about profound loss before, in his Tony-winning show 700 Sundays, about growing up on Long Island and coping with his father’s sudden death from a heart attack. “The pain of those moments was a little further removed,” he reflects. “This is still fresh and still ongoing.”
Although his new show opens at the start of what he calls “the worst year of his life,” it is — as with virtually every performance by the comedian — a means of spreading laughter.
Billy Crystal shot at the Imperial Theater in NYC on Sept. 28, 2026.Credit: Martin Schoeller
After all, that’s what has defined him, from his 1977 breakthrough role on Soap to the eternal charm of When Harry Met Sally . . ., nine memorable turns as an Oscars host and an outing as a lovable lime-green cyclops in Monsters, Inc. Says Crystal: “Laughter made my life possible.”
He and Janice are planning to rebuild on the property. Still, he says, “It’s not just about our home. This is a story about resilience, about family, about laughing, loving, support, moving forward, facing things you never thought were possible and coming to grips with it. And then turning it into something that feels beautiful to do every time I do it.”
Read on for a conversation with Crystal, condensed and edited for clarity.
Take us back to Jan. 7, 2025.
CRYSTAL We were awakened early with low-flying helicopters, and then a lot of fire trucks, sirens, and there’s already a lot of smoke in the sky and then turning on the TV and seeing friends abandoning their cars and running for their lives. Then it became really real, and you think, “It went from 20 acres to 200 acres in 15 minutes. Let’s get out of here.” Then the alert went off. We never heard that sound before. We took photo albums, wedding albums, photographs of our parents’ weddings. So that’s what we had and the clothes we were wearing, thinking we’ll be back in a day.
Billy Crystal’s Pacific Palisades house after the 2025 firesCredit: Courtesy Billy Crystal
Where did you go?
CRYSTAL We got to my daughter Jenny’s house. Our security cameras, all you could see were the flying embers. Then the cameras went out, and we started watching the [news] coverage from the Palisades. And your life there, for 46 years, the stores, where you eat, pick up your prescriptions, it’s disappearing. Oh boy, it’s blocks from the house. Then you sort of know: you’re doomed. The beautiful part was being with my daughters and their husbands, my grandchildren, my brother and sister-in-law and everyone else around the country who we’re related to, texting, watching. It was a vigil, just trying to get us through the night.
How did you learn your house had burned down?
CRYSTAL In the morning we still didn’t know, except that the National Guard had moved in, and it was a war zone. Then our neighbor called, hysterically crying to say, “It’s gone.”
When you found the rock with “Laughter,” what did that mean to you?
CRYSTAL When I was 15, being there with a grieving mother and watching her put her life back together at 49, my job was to keep her laughing. That word made my life possible. So the fact that was the first thing [we found], we’ll be okay.
The rock Billy Crystal found that survived the fireCredit: Courtesy Billy Crystal
The show also addresses the loss of Rob and Michele Reiner. How did you meet Rob?
CRYSTAL There’s a lot of themes in this show about luck and fate. [As a] young comedian, I came out to California and ended up at the Comedy Store. I did 20 minutes. Norman Lear happened to be in the audience. He just introduced himself, “Hi, I’m Norman Lear.” Two weeks later I got a call that Norman wanted me to play Rob Reiner’s best friend in this episode of All in the Family: “I think you and Robbie will be great together.”
First impression?
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CRYSTAL He’s tall and he’s in charge. He looked at me, a new guy, and said, “Billy, what do you think we should do there?” Inclusive right away. So many times we couldn’t keep a straight face. I knew it from that first week that this is going to be a forever thing. It’s not something you can define, which makes the loss even more profound.
His dad, Carl Reiner, and Mel Brooks also had a big influence on you.
CRYSTAL Carl taught me how to step back and make someone else funny and also how to be a mentor. His house was an open invitation to young comedians. The most touching thing about Carl and Mel, and I’m in touch with Mel all the time, they would have dinner together every night and watch a movie, and more than likely they’d fall asleep, and then they’d have to watch it again the next night. I said, “Mel, what movies do you watch?” [He’d say] “We watched Bourne Identity, and I still don’t know his identity because I fell asleep. Who is he?”
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How’d you get the part in When Harry Met Sally . . .?
CRYSTAL I was not Rob’s first choice for Harry. I said, if he wants me, then he wants me, but I know he’s seeing other people. Then the call came: “I always knew it was you.” He said, “Please read it.” I said, “Someone snuck it to me. Guess what? I don’t like it.” We laughed and laughed. He said, “We’ll start tomorrow.”
Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan in When Harry Met SallyCredit: Castle Rock/Nelson/Columbia/Kobal/Shutterstock
By the way, who was first choice?
CRYSTAL I think it was Albert Brooks, Tom Hanks, Michael Keaton. [He pauses, then grins.] Doesn’t matter.
Are there times when you still see something and want to tell Rob?
CRYSTAL It happens a lot. We had the first run-through on this stage, and I felt so good. I ran upstairs to the dressing room, and my first thought was, “I’ve got to call Rob.” I don’t know if I don’t want that to keep happening or I do want it to keep happening. He encouraged me. I had told him what I was doing, and he said, “What are you calling it?” I gave him these [different] titles, and he said, “I think 860. That’s the one. I love that.” So he’s there for me in that way too. What can I tell you?
The show is also a love letter to your wife, Janice.
CRYSTAL We just realized the other day our first date was 60 years ago, as we always joke, during the Johnson Administration. When you can’t describe someone, that’s how big it is. Hilarious, charming, beautiful, loving, nurturing, honest, compassionate, tough, assertive, not just with me. Strong-willed. The greatest grandmother.
Billy Crystal with his wife Janice and daughters Jenny and LindsayCredit: Courtesy Billy Crystal
How’d that first date go?
CRYSTAL Good! I hope Yankee fans don’t get mad at me, but we went to a Mets game. First time I saw her, I knew. She walked by me in a bikini. She had a great walk, and I said to my friend, “Steve, I’m going to marry her.” And I still walk behind her going, “You’re looking good, kid.”
What have you learned about marriage and love?
CRYSTAL Oh God. It’s possible. I’ll leave it at that.
In the show, you say, “Grief sped up my life.”
CRYSTAL You sense the reality of time, and you start measuring it. I hate the term “bucket list” because that assumes you’re going to kick it. But you sense choices become more important. How do you stay loving? How do you stay optimistic?
How do you stay optimistic?
CRYSTAL It’s that [“Laughter”] rock. It’s hard to, seeing what’s happening in the world. It’s crazy out there, but okay, surround yourself with people who love and care about you and you care about them. And as Mel Brooks would say, never eat fried food.
Where’s the rock now?
CRYSTAL I brought it with me. It’s my touchstone.
Crystal’s one-man show 860 opens on Oct. 21 and will run for a 14-week limited engagement through Jan. 3.
To watch the full interview, visit the PEOPLE App. For more from Billy Crystal, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE on newsstands everywhere Friday.
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Source: “AOL Entertainment”
