Image: “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” Series Poster via IMDb
“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 to do this without bad intent.”
This is Erik Menendez’s response to the new true crime drama, “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” (2024).
It’s not the first time that Ryan Murphy, the creator of “Dahmer” (2022), has faced backlash for one of his true crime drama recreations. Family members spoke out about the Netflix show, claiming it was “retraumatizing.” PEOPLE magazine had reached out to the families and they claimed that no one had reached out to them regarding the creation of the show.
”Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” tells the story of the murders of José and ‘Kitty’ Menendez, killed by their two sons, Erik (18) and Lyle (21) in 1989. Mixed reactions have flooded in, with many describing the show as “grotesque.” The show dives deep into the sexual, emotional and physical abuse the two brothers endured in the Menendez home. The nine-episode series was released on Netflix on Sept. 19.
Tammi Menendez, married to Erik Menendez, has been releasing statements made by Erik and the extended Menendez family on X. She posted a statement on Sept. 25, regarding the entire extended family of Erik and Lyle Menendez, describing the show as “a phobic, gross, anarchistic, serial episode nightmare that is not only riddled with mistruths and outright falsehoods but ignores the most recent exculpatory revelations.” They claim that Murphy had never spoken to them and relied on other sources to tell their family’s story.
Since the series has been released, there have been arguments over how accurate the abuse and trauma of the brothers has been portrayed. In episode seven, Dominick Dunne suggests at the dinner table that the boys may have killed their parents after they found out a “darker secret” that the brothers didn’t want getting out, insinuating that the two had an incestuous relationship. Other episodes, like episodes two and six, also supported the conspiracy of this relationship. Robert Rand, the author of “The Menendez Murders” (2018), spoke to The Hollywood Reporter, stating that he “certainly wouldn’t call that a sexual relationship of any sort. It’s a response to trauma.”
“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,” Erik says in his statement.
Ryan Murphy strongly defends his series. As co-creator and co-writer of the series, he says, “We show many, many, many, many perspectives. That’s what the show does. In every episode, you are given a new theory based on people who were either involved or covered the case.” On Sept. 23, he spoke to E! News, saying, “I know he hasn’t watched the show. So I find that curious…I hope he does watch it. I think if he did watch it he would be incredibly proud of Cooper Koch who plays him (Erik).”
Sept. 23, Kim Kardashian and Cooper Koch visited Lyle and Erik at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility. They have been in this prison since the sentencing in 1996. A source has told PEOPLE magazine that they were there to discuss the Green Space Project.
At this time Lyle has not spoken out about the series. Nicholas Alexander Chavez, who portrays Lyle in the series, told PEOPLE that he “really sympathizes with the brothers, the fact that this was the most traumatic moment of theirs, and then having that put on television for the world to see. I would imagine that would be incredibly heavy.”
“Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” has fallen under the category of controversial true crime shows. The show is described as a work of fiction based on the Menendez brothers, but since they are still alive and incarcerated, how moral is it to insinuate a relationship between the two? Currently, the two brothers are still serving their sentence of life in prison with no possibility of parole.
Lauren Flynn-Miller is a fourth-year Interdisciplinary Studies Major with minors in Journalism, Media & Culture, and Professional & Technical Writing.