'Naive and inaccurate': Erik Menendez slams portrayal of him, brother Lyle in Ryan Murphy's new 'Monsters'
The second season of Ryan Murphy's Monsters, a series chronicling the lives of killers, has dropped—and this time, it centers on the story of brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez.
The real-life Erik has since slammed the depiction of their murder case in the Netflix series, calling the portrayal "naive and inaccurate."
The Menendez brothers were convicted of the murder of their parents José and Mary Louse in 1996. While the prosecution said Erik and Lyle killed their parents to inherit their family fortune, the brothers claim that their actions were out of fear of the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse they experienced.
In a statement shared to his wife Tammi Menendez's X account, Erik said that the portrayal was "rooted in horrible and blatant rampant lies" and criticized series creator Murphy.
Erik's response to the Netflix's series.#NetflixMonsters #Netflix #RyanMurphy pic.twitter.com/Xz1waxA2u3
— Tammi Menendez (@TammiMenendez1) September 20, 2024
"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," he wrote.
"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 from women."
He also called the character depictions of him and his brother "vile and appalling" as well as "disheartening slander."
Erik and Lyle are currently serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. They killed their parents on August 20, 1989 as they entered their Beverly Hills mansion carrying shotguns. After the murders, they called 911, claiming they came home from watching a movie when they found their parents. The brothers later began living lavishly after their parents' deaths and were later arrested after Lyle confessed to his psychologist about the incident.
The first season of Monsters told the story of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, played by Evan Peters. The second series stars Nicholas Chavez and Cooper Koch as Lyle and Erik, respectively, and Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny as their parents.
A third season is coming centering on killer and grave robber Ed Gein.