Erik Menendez Blasts Ryan Murphy’s Netflix Show ‘Monsters’
Season two of Monsters debuted on Netflix this week to rave reviews. Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story tells the tale of two rich kids in California who killed their parents in the late 1980s. Both brothers are serving out life sentences. The case continues to intrigue the nation amid claims of new evidence that could exonerate the brothers. Convicted killer Erik Menendez blasted the show and its creator, Ryan Murphy. Keep reading to see why.
New Evidence To Be Presented In Court
Erik and Lyle Menendez shot their parents, Kitty and Jose, to death in the summer of 1989. That’s an undisputed fact, even though police initially thought it was a mob hit. That’s how gruesome the crime scene was. But the question remains to this day of why the brothers killed their parents. Media reports at the time speculated that Jose threatened to write his sons out of his will and greed took over.
However, the brothers later claimed they were victims of sexual abuse at the hands of their father and murdered their parents in self-defense. Other allegations of abuse against Jose Menendez have since come out from a member of the boy band Menudo.
Lyle and Erik Menendez are currently serving life sentences in California. However, they petitioned the court last year to review new evidence that could possibly reduce their sentence.
According to Forbes, the new evidence is a sworn statement from the Menudo member about the abuse and a letter from Erik to his cousin written months before the murders that alluded to the alleged abuse.
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story
Netflix had major success in 2022 with the limited series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story starring Evan Peters as the serial killer. Season 2 stars General Hospital alum Nicholas Chavez as Lyle Menendez and Cooper Koch as Erik.
The Netflix series recently confirmed a Season 3 with Charlie Hunman as serial killer Ed Gein.
Early reviews of the series are mainly positive, but the real Erik Menendez is not a fan.
Erik Menendez Blasts Ryan Murphy’s Netflix Show Monsters
Erik Menendez is still in prison, but he released a public statement via his wife, Tammi, whom he married in 1999. His brother, Lyle, married for the second time in 2003.
The convicted killer blasted Netflix for how the series portrays his brother. “I believed we had moved beyond the lies and ruinous character portrayals of Lyle, creating a caricature of Lyle rooted in horrible and blatant lies rampant in the show. I can only believe they were done so on purpose,” Erik wrote in a lengthy statement.
He also took issue with the show downplaying the sexual abuse allegations against his father. “It is sad for me to know that Netflix’s dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime have taken the painful truths several steps backward – back through time to an era when the prosecution built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused, and that males experienced rape trauma differently than women.”
Erik Menendez specifically called out the show’s creator, Ryan Murphy, for having “bad intent” in portraying the brothers’ relationship. Many viewers took to Twitter to express disdain for the homoerotic undertones between Erik and Lyle in the limited series.
of course, it’s a ryan murphy production #monstersnetflix pic.twitter.com/nW5Z7kXRL4
— x (@haus_of_candy) September 19, 2024
Erik Menendez’s Full Statement From Twitter
“I believed we had moved beyond the lies and ruinous character portrayals of Lyle, creating a caricature of Lyle rooted in horrible and blatant lies rampant in the show. I can only believe they were done so on purpose. It is with a heavy heart that I say, I believe Ryan Murphy cannot be this naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives so as to do this without bad intent.
“It is sad for me to know that Netflix’s dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime have taken the painful truths several steps backward – back through time to an era when the prosecution built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused, and that males experienced rape trauma differently than women. Those awful lies have been disputed and exposed by countless brave victims over the last two decades who have broken through their personal shame and bravely spoken out. So now Murphy shapes his horrible narrative through vile and appalling character portrayals of Lyle and of me and disheartening slander.
“Is the truth not enough? Let the truth stand as the truth. How demoralizing to know that one man with power can undermine decades of progress in shedding light on childhood trauma. Violence is never an answer, never a solution, and is always tragic. As such, I hope it is never forgotten that violence against a child creates a hundred horrendous and silent crime scenes darkly shadowed behind glitter and glamor and rarely exposed until tragedy penetrates everyone involved. To all those who have reached out and supported me, thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
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