Following the release of Netflix‘s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, Erik Menendez released a statement denouncing the show as a “dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime.”
In 1996, Erik and Lyle Menendez were convicted of murdering their parents José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menéndez and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The brothers maintain to this day that their motive stemmed from a lifetime of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse from their parents.
In his statement shared by his wife Tammi Menendez on social media Thursday, Erik wrote, “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.”
Murphy has previously received backlash for his portrayal of violence and trauma surrounding true crime content. Although 2022’s Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, sought to give serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer a dramatized origin story, family members of Dahmer’s victims claimed the series capitalized on their trauma without informing them.
“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,” the statement continued. “Those awful lies have been disrupted and exposed by countless brave victims over the last two decades who have broken through their personal shame and bravely spoken out.” Erik further accused Murphy of shaping “his horrible narrative through vile and appalling character portrayals of Lyle and of me and disheartening slander.”
He added, “Is the truth not enough?”
During the highly publicized trial in the Nineties, defense attorney Leslie Abramson alleged that Lyle and Erik had been sexually molested by their father from the time they were small children, and their fear led to the 1989 murders. In the years since, former Menudo member, Roy Rosselló, claimed that their father Jose Menendez, then an executive at RCA Records that signed Menudo to a multimillion-dollar contract, raped him as well.
“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,” said Erik as he concluded his statement. “Violence is never an answer, never a solution, and is always tragic. A 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.”
