Monsters star Nicholas Chavez has spoken out after Erik Menéndez criticised the Netflix true crime drama.
Nicholas plays Erik Menéndez’s brother Lyle in the new Ryan Murphy show, with both Menéndez siblings currently serving life sentences for the murder of their parents in the late 1980s.
Over the weekend, the younger Menéndez brother issued a statement from prison, criticising the show for perpetuating “horrible and blatant lies” about himself, his brother and the murders of their parents.
Nicholas told USA Today in response to Menéndez’s comments: “I can only respond with sympathy and empathy in that I can only imagine how difficult it is to have the most traumatic moment of your life put up there on the screen for everyone to see.”
Similarly, he told Entertainment Tonight: “I empathise with the fact that it must be incredibly difficult to see some of the most painful moments of your life being portrayed on television.”
Nicholas’ co-star Cooper Koch recently paid a visit to the Menéndez brothers in prison, alongside fellow Ryan Murphy collaborator and law student Kim Kardashian.
However, Nicholas made it clear he didn’t plan on doing the same, telling Entertainment Tonight: “My view is that as an actor you come in and you play a part, and then, at the end of the day, you need to have the grace to be able to say that that was a role that I played, and it was a job that I had, and then you need to let it go and move onto the next project.
“I think that’s more so the point of view that I would take.”
Ryan Murphy recently defended the show after it faced a backlash over the inclusion of certain scenes, including the suggestion of an incestuous sexual relationship between the two brothers.
“If you watch the show, what the show is doing is presenting the points of view and theories from so many people who were involved in the case,” the TV super-producer claimed.
“Dominick Dunne [the journalist, portrayed in the show by Nathan Lane] wrote several articles talking about that theory, and how he thought that theory had validity. What we do in the show is, he talks about that, we are presenting his point of view just as we present [defence attorney] Leslie Abramson’s point of view. The show presents over 10 points of view of different events.
“So when people watch that and they say that, that is somebody in our show having a narrative statement about, ‘this is what I believe really happened’. And we had an obligation to show all of that, and we did.”
The Lyle And Erik Menéndez Story is the second instalment in Ryan Murphy’s Monsters series, following the similarly-controversial Dahmer in 2022. A third show is already in the pipeline, which will centre around a different real-life murderer altogether.
Meanwhile, the Menéndez brothers are set to tell their own story in a new documentary, which will begin streaming on Netflix next month.