Convicted murderer Erik Menéndez has hit out at the Netflix show Monsters, which centres around him, his brother Lyle and the events leading up to their parents’ murders.
Erik and Lyle Menéndez are currently both serving life sentences for killing their parents, José and Kitty Menéndez, which the brothers allege was an act of self-defence after years of sexual and emotional abuse.
Although extended family members have corroborated the brothers’ allegations about their parents, the prosecution argued at the time that the pair killed their parents for financial gain.
Last week, Erik Menéndez’s wife Tammi shared a lengthy statement on X on behalf of her husband, accusing TV super-producer Ryan Murphy’s latest show of perpetuating “horrible and blatant lies”.
“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,” the statement read.
“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.”
He continued: “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.
“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.”
“How demoralising to know that one man with power can undermine decades of progress in shedding light on childhood trauma,” he lamented.
“Violence is never an answer, never a solution, and is always tragic. As 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 glamour and rarely exposed until tragedy penetrates everyone involved.”
HuffPost UK has contacted Netflix for comment.
The first season of Ryan Murphy’s Monster franchise centred around serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
While it proved popular with viewers – and saw cast members Evan Peters and Niecy Nash earning an Emmy nomination and win, respectively, for their performances – it also faced backlash from some critics for glamourising the central murderer.
Meanwhile, the families of Dahmer’s victims were also vocal in speaking out against the show.
Ryan Murphy has already confirmed plans for a third season of his anthology series Monster, this time focussing on a different real-life murderer.