Lyle and Erik Menéndez's family has issued a scathing statement blasting Ryan Murphy’s Netflix show.
Last week, the streaming service premiered Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story, which explores the high-profile 1989 case of the brothers, who were convicted of murdering their father José, 45, and mother Mary Louise, 47, at their home in Beverly Hills.
The siblings, who were 19 and 22 at the time, managed to evade capture for many months after the murder until a confession to their therapist, Dr. Jerome Oziel, revealed the truth and led to their arrest.
The new Netflix series based on Erik and Lyle is part of the Monster anthology strand that started with a hit Jeffrey Dahmer drama in 2022.
It is directed by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan and stars Chloë Sevigny, Javier Bardem, Nicholas Alexander Chavez, and Cooper Koch as Kitty, José, Lyle, and Nick respectively.
The show is currently the number one TV program on the platform and has been heavily condemned by 24 members of the Menendez family for its "repulsive" storytelling. It has also been slammed by viewers for insinuating that the brothers had an incestuous relationship in one particular scene.
Erik's wife, Tammi Menéndez, released a statement from the supportive family on social media, reading: “We are virtually the entire extended family of Erik and Lyle Menéndez. We are 24 strong and today we want the world to know we support Erik and Lyle.
"We individually and collectively pray for their release after being imprisoned for 35 years. We know them, love them, and want them home with us," they added.
Read the statement below:The relatives described the show as “a phobic, gross, anachronistic, serial episode nightmare that is not only riddled with mistruths and outright falsehoods but ignores the most recent exculpatory revelations”.
They said they have been "victimized by this grotesque shockudrama," adding: “Murphy claims he spent years researching the case but in the end relied on debunked Dominick Dunne, the pro-prosecution hack, to justify his slander against us and never spoke to us."
“The character assassination of Erik and Lyle, who are our nephews and cousins, under the guise of a ‘storytelling narrative’ is repulsive. We know these men. We grew up with them since they were boys. We love them and to this very day we are close to them," they wrote.
They penned that they know "what went on" in the Menendez household and "the unimaginably turbulent lives they have endured," perhaps alluding to the alleged sexual abuse the brothers suffered.
"Several of us were eyewitnesses to many atrocities one should never have to bear witness to," they said. “It is sad that Ryan Murphy, Netflix, and all others involved in this series, do not have an understanding of the impact of years of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.”
The statement scathingly concluded: “Perhaps, after all, ‘Monsters’ is all about Ryan Murphy.”
Filmmaker Ryan Murphy has since defended the show, saying: "If you watch the show, I would say 60-65 percent of the scripted narrative centers around the abuse and what they claim happened to them."
And we do it very carefully and we give them their day in court and they talk openly about it," Murphy added, cited by The Independent.
Meanwhile, Cooper Koch, the actor who plays Erik, visited the brothers in prison after the real Erik denounced the series in a lengthy statement.
The 28-year-old said to Variety that he told Eric that “it makes sense that you would feel this way." adding: “I can’t imagine what it would be like to have the worst part of your life, such a traumatic and tragic thing, be televised for millions of people to see in a dramatized Hollywood TV way... I just said, ‘I understand, I get it, and I stand with you.’”
Erik, now 53, and Lyle, now 56, were found guilty on two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder in March 1996. They are not eligible for parole and will spend the rest of their lives in prison.
The brothers are set to tell their own story in a forthcoming Netflix documentary, which will be released after backlash to Murphy and Brennan's Monsters.
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