Current:Home > reviewsHere's What Erik Menendez Really Thinks About Ryan Murphy's Menendez Brothers Series -SummitInvest
Here's What Erik Menendez Really Thinks About Ryan Murphy's Menendez Brothers Series
View
Date:2025-04-15 22:09:20
Erik Menendez is speaking out against Ryan Murphy's series about him and his brother Lyle Menendez, who are serving life sentences for murdering their parents in 1989.
Erik's shared his thoughts about Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story in a message his wife Tammi Menendez shared on X, formerly Twitter, Sept. 19, the day the show premiered on Netflix.
"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," Erik said. "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."
E! News has reached out to Murphy and Netflix for comment on the 53-year-old's remarks and has not heard back.
In Monsters, the second season of an crime drama anthology series that Murphy co-created with Ian Brennan, Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch play Lyle and Erik, respectively, while Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny portray the brothers' parents, José Menendez and Mary Louise "Kitty" Menendez.
In 1996, following two trials, Erik and Lyle, 56, were convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder for the 1989 shotgun killings of their father and mother in their Beverly Hills home. The brothers were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors had said Erik and Lyle's motivation for the murders stemmed from their desire to inherit the family fortune. The siblings had alleged their parents had physically, emotionally and sexually abused them for years and their legal team argued they killed their mother and father in self-defense.
"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," Erik said in his statement, "back though 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."
He 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. So now Murphy shapes his horrible narrative through vile and appalling character portrayals of Lyle and of me and disheartening slander."
Erik added that "violence is never an answer, never a solution, and is always tragic."
"As such," he continued, "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."
For the latest breaking news updates, click here to download the E! News AppveryGood! (9162)
Related
- Sam Taylor
- NCAA presents options to expand March Madness tournaments from current 68 teams, AP source says
- Oilers fever overtakes Edmonton as fans dream of a Stanley Cup comeback against Florida
- 'Be good': My dad and ET shared last words I'll never forget
- Federal court filings allege official committed perjury in lawsuit tied to Louisiana grain terminal
- NCAA presents options to expand March Madness tournaments from current 68 teams, AP source says
- 2025 Honda Odyssey: Everything we know about the next minivan
- Shop Jenna Dewan’s Cozy & Mystical Nursery Essentials, Plus Her Go-To Beauty Product for Busy Moms
- Scoot flight from Singapore to Wuhan turns back after 'technical issue' detected
- Hours-long blackout affects millions in Ecuador after transmission line fails
Ranking
- Civic engagement nonprofits say democracy needs support in between big elections. Do funders agree?
- Tale of a changing West
- Another police dog dies while trying to help officers arrest a suspect in South Carolina
- Rapper Travis Scott arrested in Miami Beach for misdemeanor trespassing and public intoxication
- The Grammy nominee you need to hear: Esperanza Spalding
- Republican state lawmaker arrested in middle of night in Lansing
- Man injured near roller coaster at Kings Island theme park after entering restricted area
- The Lakers are hiring JJ Redick as their new head coach, an AP source says
Recommendation
Travis Hunter, the 2
Louisiana’s new law requiring the Ten Commandments in classrooms churns old political conflicts
A DA kept Black women off a jury. California’s Supreme Court says that wasn’t racial bias
Can you blame heat wave on climate change? Eye-popping numbers suggest so.
Former Danish minister for Greenland discusses Trump's push to acquire island
In Bed-Stuy, a watermelon stand stands strong against tides of gentrification
So long plastic air pillows: Amazon shifting to recycled paper filling for packages in North America
Oilers' Stanley Cup Final turnaround vs. Panthers goes beyond Connor McDavid