Netflix’s ‘Monsters’: Erik Menendez and Family Members Criticize the Show

The brothers’ case was one of the biggest media sensations of the 1990s and has been the subject of several films and TV series.

Co-creator Ryan Murphy said the story was true during a question-and-answer session for the show in New York last week, Vanity Fair reported.

“Everything that’s written here, by the way, is true,” he said. “We’ve been researching this for many, many, many years.”

However, since the show aired last week, several viewers, including the Menendez family, have criticized the creators for including scenes they felt were inaccurate. It was not clear which specific scenes their comments were referring to.

On Friday, Tammi Menendez shared a statement from her husband Erik Menendez about X, in which he criticized the way Lyle Menendez was portrayed in the series.

“I believed we had moved past the lies and the ruinous character portrayals of Lyle, and had created a caricature of Lyle that was rooted in the horrible and blatant lies that were rampant on the show. I can only believe they did this on purpose,” Erik Menedez wrote. “It is with a heavy heart that I say that I believe Ryan Murphy could not be so naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives to do this without malicious intent.”

Erik Menendez also criticized the way the series depicted the sexual abuse the brothers alleged their father, José Menendez, inflicted on them.

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During the trial, there was debate over whether the brothers killed their parents to inherit their money or in self-defense. The brothers, who are currently appealing their life sentences, allege that their father physically and sexually abused them and that they shot him to protect themselves.

“It is sad to know that Netflix’s dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crimes has set the painful truth back several steps — back in time to an era when prosecutors built a narrative on a belief system that men were not sexually abused and that men experienced rape trauma differently than women,” Erik Menendez wrote in his statement. “Those horrible lies have been disrupted and exposed over the past two decades by countless brave victims who have broken through their personal shame and bravely spoken out.

“So now Murphy is fleshing out his horrific story through disgusting and appalling characterizations of Lyle and me, and disheartening smears.”

Tammi Menendez also shared her own criticism of the series, before and after its premiere on Netflix.

“The Menendez drama on Netflix is ​​a complete mess! The portrayal of events is so exaggerated and untrue, it feels more like a dark soap opera than a drama. They really missed the facts!” she wrote before the series came out.

After the show’s release, she added in a separate post: “I’m sorry to hear I was right. The Netflix show was an insane distortion of the truth and a complete and tragic misrepresentation of Erik and Lyle!”

A Facebook page that appears to be run by a relative of Lyle Menendez and has been cited frequently by news organizations has also been vocal in its criticism of the show, giving its opinion on each episode and urging followers to stop watching.

Business Insider has reached out to the account to verify whether it is managed by a family member of Lyle Menendez.

In one post, the user wrote: “They had an abundance of material to draw from, and this is what they chose to do????? It’s laughable. It’s pathetic. And it’s re-victimization. It’s imaginary. It’s fiction. And to bring into the world the absurd notion that the brothers were lovers is the height of pure evil.”

The last line references several scenes in the series in which the brothers kiss or are implied to be secret lovers.

In 1995, the Los Angeles Times reported that Erik Menendez testified during a retrial that Lyle Menendez had molested him when they were children. But there was no evidence or testimony during any trial that the couple had a secret relationship.

Other viewers criticized a kiss between the brothers in the series, writing on X that it was wrong to include a fake incest story when the brothers claimed they were victims of abuse.

The first season of “Monsters” also drew criticism when it was released in 2022. Several family members of Dahmer’s victims said Murphy and Netflix were profiting off their pain, and alleged that neither contacted them to ask permission to tell their stories.

The Hollywood Reporter reported in October 2022 that Murphy told a Directors Guild of America event in Los Angeles that they had contacted 20 family members and friends of the victims but had not received a response.

A Netflix spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.