Menendez Family Slams Netflix’s ‘Monsters’ as ‘Grotesque’ and ‘Riddled With Mistruths’: ‘The Character Assassination of Erik and Lyke Is Repulsive’

Zack Sharf
·3 min read
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Erik Menendez’s wife Tammi has posted a scathing takedown of Netflix’s “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” on behalf of the brothers’ aunt Joan VanderMolen and the rest of their extended family, Tammi explained in the caption. The family statement blasts “Monsters” as “a phobic, gross, anachronistic, serial episodic nightmare that is not only riddled with mistruths and outright falsehoods but ignores the most recent exculpatory revelations.”

“We are virtually the entire extended family of Erik and Lyle Menéndez,” the statement reads. “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.”

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The family statement says relatives of the Menendez brothers have “been victimized by this grotesque shockadrama,” 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.”

Dominick Dunne was a reporter for Vanity Fair who covered the Menendez trial in the 1990s. He’s played by Nathan Lane in “Monsters,” which dramatizes the 1989 murders of Jose and Kitty Menendez by their sons, Lyle and Erik, and the subsequent trials that ended in their conviction in 1996. One of Dunne’s more controversial theories is represented in “Monsters” and alleges that Erik and Lyle had an incestuous relationship. One scene in the series shows the brothers showering together.

“The character assassination of Erik and Lyle, who are our nephews and cousins, under the guise of a ‘storytelling narrative” is repulsive,” the family’s statement reads. “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. We also know what went on in their home and the unimaginably turbulent lives they have endured. Several of us were eyewitnesses to many atrocities one should never have to bear witness to.”

“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 concludes. “Perhaps, after all, ‘Monsters’ is all about Ryan Murphy.”

Shortly after “Monsters” made its streaming debut on Netflix, Tammi posted a statement from Erik Menendez in which he slammed the show and said Murphy was “naive and inaccurate” in his portrayal of the brothers. Murphy responded by telling Entertainment Tonight that “it’s interesting that he’s issued a statement without having seen the show.”

“The thing that I find interesting that he doesn’t mention in his quote, is if you watch the show, I would say 60 to 65 percent of our show in the scripts and in the film form center around the abuse and what they claim happened to them,” Murphy said. “And we do it very carefully and we give them their day in court and they talk openly about it.”

Cooper Koch, the actor who plays Erik in the Netflix series, visited the Menendez brothers in prison after the real Erik criticized the show. Koch said in an interview with Variety that he told Eric that “it makes sense that you would feel this way.”

“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,” Koch said. “I just said, ‘I understand, I get it, and I stand with you.’”

“Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” is now streaming on Netflix.

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