Erik Menendez Accuses Ryan Murphy's 'Monsters' of Spreading 'Blatant Lies'

Erik Menendez has voiced strong opposition to what he terms a "dishonest portrayal" of his life in Netflix's "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story." Convicted alongside his elder sibling, Lyle, for the 1989 killings of their parents, Kitty and Jose Menendez, the brothers are serving life sentences. They claimed self-defense, citing prolonged maltreatment by their father. Through a social media statement shared by his spouse, Erik labeled the series, co-created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, as "ruinous."

He lamented, "I thought we had moved beyond the fabrications and damaging depictions of Lyle, which the show perpetuates through baseless and egregious falsehoods." He added, "It saddens me to suspect that Ryan Murphy cannot be this misinformed and errant about our life’s facts without malintent."

The nine-part series reexamines the crime from multiple angles, including conjectures about the brothers’ dynamics and the prosecution’s claim that financial gain was a motive. "It pains me that Netflix's misleading depiction of the calamities surrounding our crime regresses the painful truths, reverting to an era when male victimhood of sexual abuse was dismissed, and their trauma underestimated," Menendez expressed. "Is the truth inadequate? Let it prevail as truth. How dispiriting it is when a single influential individual can erode years of progress in illuminating childhood trauma."

Ahead of the show’s debut, Murphy and Brennan discussed their creative stance at a New York screening. "The series is more about exploring how monsters are shaped rather than born," Murphy explained during an early panel, according to Netflix. "We aim to refrain from excessive judgment, focusing instead on understanding their motivations rather than their actions."

Brennan remarked, "Ultimately, the true events are known solely to the two individuals imprisoned today." In response to Menendez's critique, Murphy, during an Entertainment Tonight interview, noted, "It's telling that he issued a statement without having watched the show. If viewed, one would see that 60 to 65 percent of our content addresses the alleged abuse, presenting their narrative with care."

"Monsters" launched its second season recently, following "Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story." Erik, 53, and Lyle, 56, remain incarcerated in a facility near San Diego, California. Their legal team argued last year that newfound evidence merits overturning their sentences.

"Violence is never a solution, always tragic," Menendez reflected. "May it never be overlooked that violence against children spawns numerous horrific and unspoken crime scenes, obscured by allure and rarely uncovered until tragedy affects all involved.