There’s an almost annual tradition among TV watchers: As a new Ryan Murphy show makes its way onto streaming services, controversy surrounds its release. This time, the backlash is in response to the Netflix series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story, which debuted on the streaming service on September 19. The show takes a look at one of the most notorious murder trials of the 1990s and follows in the footsteps of Murphy’s other true-crime shows, such as Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, as well as multiple entries of his anthology series American Crime Story, including The People vs. O.J. Simpson, and The Assassination of Gianni Versace.
Since its streaming premiere, the show has already garnered significant criticism for its portrayal of the titular brothers, specifically for its speculation about a possible romantic, incestuous relationship between them. Here, we break down exactly who the Menéndez Brothers are, why people seem so upset with Murphy (again), and whether there’s any shred of truth to what is being depicted on screen.
Note: This article discusses explicit acts of child sexual abuse.
Erik and Lyle Menéndez, who are often referred to simply as the “Menéndez Brothers,” are siblings who were convicted of the 1989 murder of their parents, José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menéndez, in 1996. José Menéndez was a record executive who worked with bands such as Duran Duran, the Eurythmics, and Menudo, and the boys had a lavish Beverly Hills upbringing.
On the night of August 20, 1989, Lyle called 911 to report that his parents had been killed. Both brothers claimed to have been at the movies and suggested that the mafia was involved with the crimes; however, Erik later confessed to the murder to his therapist, L. Jerome Oziel, who had taped their therapy sessions. Oziel’s mistress took the tapes to the police and in March 1990, the Brothers were arrested and charged with their parents’ murder.
During the trial, which aired on CourtTV and became a national media sensation, the brothers argued that they killed their parents out of fear for their lives after being sexually and physically abused by their father. Lyle also accused Kitty of sexual abuse, stating that she would wash his body everywhere and invite him into bed with her, where she would touch him.
The nine-episode second season of Ryan Murphy’s anthology true crime series Monsters — yes, the one that covered serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in its first season — dropped on Netflix on September 19. The show jumps around in time, depicting the murder, trial, and its aftermath through multiple perspectives and with a star-stacked cast. Oscar winner Javier Bardem and Oscar nominee Chloë Sevigny play José and Kitty Menéndez.
The show also features Nathan Lane as journalist Dominick Dunne, who wrote extensively about the trial as it played out. Ari Graynor (Mrs. America) plays defense attorney Leslie Abramson, while Ryan Murphy mainstay Leslie Grossman plays Judalon Smyth, Oziel’s mistress. Lyle is played by Nicholas Alexander Chavez, who won a Daytime Emmy in 2022 for his work on General Hospital, while Erik is played by out actor Cooper Koch, who previously starred in the queer horror thriller They/Them and the body horror film Swallowed.
As with any Ryan Murphy joint, the show was controversial upon its release and faced a number of criticisms related to the veracity of its portrayals and whether aspects of the story had been sensationalized. As Jen Chaney pointed out in Vulture, for a show that covers both patricide and sexual abuse, some feel Monsters leans a bit too far into turning the brothers into sex symbols. The show delights in showing the brothers buddying it up in Speedos with their six packs on full display. Of course, some of that is just par for the course in the twink-laden Murphyverse.
But many viewers objected specifically to the idea put forth in the show that Lyle and Erik were perhaps romantically involved with one another. In the show, the brothers kiss on the lips and dance together sensually, with Lyle putting his thumb in Erik’s mouth. In one scene, told from Dunne’s perspective, Kitty finds them showering together.
In a tweet that went viral over the weekend, one X user wrote: “If Ryan wanted to make a show about twin brothers developing an intimate relationship with each other due to shared sexual trauma and parental abuse, then he should’ve written a new story. You don’t get to rewrite the experience of real people and REAL VICTIMS to suit yourself!”
Robert Rand, who covered the trial extensively and wrote a book about it, 2018’s The Menéndez Murders, told The Hollywood Reporter that this depiction is a “fantasy” invented by Dunne.
“I don’t believe that Erik and Lyle Menéndez were ever lovers,” Rand said. “I believe the only physical contact they might have had is what Lyle testified, that when Lyle was 8 years old, he took Erik out in the woods and played with him with a toothbrush — which is what [their father] José had done with him. And so I certainly wouldn’t call that a sexual relationship of any sort. It’s a response to trauma.”
On September 19, the same day that the show was released on Netflix, Tammi Menéndez, Erik’s wife, shared a statement from her husband on X, in which he slammed the show’s “dishonest portrayal” of the brothers.
“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 reads. “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.”
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Menéndez added that he was sad that the show’s portrayal of the events of his life had “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 experiences rape trauma differently than women.”
“How demoralizing to know that one man with power can undermine decades of progress in shedding light on childhood trauma,” he wrote, concluding his statement by thanking those who had reached out with support in the wake of the release of the show.
On the morning of Sept. 26, Tammi Menéndez posted a statement to X on behalf of the extended family. “We are 24 strong and today we want the world to know we support Erik and Lyle,” the statement reads, adding that the family “individually and collectively pray[s] for their release after being imprisoned for 35 years.”
The statement additionally criticized Monsters as “a phobic, gross anachronistic serial episodic nightmare that is not only riddled with mistruths and outright falsehoods but ignores the most recent exculpatory revelations.” The statement also claimed that while Murphy asserted that he spent years researching the case, he had never spoken to the family.
“Murphy claims he spent years researching the case but in the end relied on debunked Dominick Dunne, the pro-prosecution hack, to justify his slander against us and never spoke to us,” it reads.
The family additionally called the “repulsive” series a “character assassination of Erik and Lyle.”
“We love them and to this very day we are close to them,” the statement reads. “We also know what went on in their home and the unimaginably turbulent lives they have endured. Several of us were eyewitnesses to many atrocities one should never have to bear witness to.”
The statement concluded with a searing condemnation of Ryan Murphy, Netflix, “and all others involved in this series.”
“Perhaps, after all, Monsters is all about Ryan Murphy,” it reads.
Neither Erik nor Lyle has ever identified as gay, bisexual, or queer. Both are currently married to women. There has been speculation over the brothers’ sexuality over the years, especially Erik, who is played in the series by an out gay actor. Erik said during the trial that he was “real confused” about his sexuality.
In 2017, prosecutor Pamela Bozanich was quoted as telling entertainment journalist Robert Hofler that there was a “strain of homosexuality running through the trial” and that “Erik was gay and having oral sex with the inmates,” for his book Money, Murder and Dominick Dunne: A Life in Several Acts.
Erik himself denied being gay in an interview with Barbara Walters. After saying he was not gay, he said, “The prosecutor brought that up because I was sexually molested and he felt in his own thinking that if I was sodomized by my father that I must have enjoyed it and therefore I must be gay.”
He added, “And people that are gay out there must be sexually molested or they wouldn’t be. It was upsetting to hear, but I am not gay. But a lot of gay people write and feel connected to me.”
And, as Rand previously said of any mentions of incest between the brothers, “I certainly wouldn’t call that a sexual relationship of any sort. It’s a response to trauma."
Murphy responded to criticisms of the show from the Menéndez Brothers, as well as viewers, in a red-carpet interview with Entertainment Tonight.
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"I think it’s interesting that he’s issued a statement without having seen the show,” Murphy said. “I know he hasn’t seen the show in prison. I hope he does see the show.”
Murphy directly responded to questions about the portrayal of incest by emphasizing that the show was written after a research team dove into accounts of the trial and that he an “obligation” to show multiple viewpoints.
“What the show is doing is presenting the points of view and theories from so many people who were involved in the case,” he said. “Dominick Dunne wrote several articles talking about that theory. We are presenting his point of view just as we present Leslie Abramson's point of view. We had an obligation to show all of that, and we did.”
Murphy also defended his efforts to make sure that the brothers’ claims of sexual abuse were centered in the story, saying that “60-65%” of the show is about the allegations of sexual abuse. "We do it very carefully and we give them their day in court, and they talk openly about it,” he said. “We present the facts from their point of view.”
The fifth episode of the series, a 36-minute episode shot in one take, discusses the abuse allegations in detail and has already been heavily lauded as a standout episode by viewers, with Koch’s performance garnering praise.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter on October 1, Murphy was asked if he felt that the show accomplished what he set out to do with it. “Yes, 100 percent,” he said, adding that the brothers should be, if anything, grateful. “The Menéndez brothers should be sending me flowers,” he continued. “They haven’t had so much attention in 30 years.” The producer went on to say that he never expected the brothers to like how the show depicted them, or think they were portrayed with accuracy. “That was never going to happen, and I wasn’t interested in that happening,” he said.
In the October 1 interview, Murphy also accused the brothers of “playing the victim card,” reiterating comments he’d made previously about the show portraying events from multiple perspectives. “We were also telling the story of the parents, who they [the brothers] blew their heads off…We had an obligation to so many people, not just to Erik and Lyle,” he told the outlet. “But that’s what I find so fascinating; that they’re playing the victim card right now — ‘poor, pitiful us’ — which I find reprehensible and disgusting,” Murphy continued.
The responses from the stars of Monsters have varied. Koch told Variety, “I sympathize with him, I empathize with him. I get it,” and added that he understands “how [Erik] feels and I stand by him.” Chavez similarly said that he “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 up there on the screen for everyone to see” in an interview with USA Today.
Bardem told Variety that he hadn’t read Erik’s statement, but expressed his support, saying that it is “absolutely normal, logical, and legitimate to say what you think about your own life being on a show.”
He additionally discussed Erik’s statement with ExtraTV alongside Chloë Sevigny, with Bardem saying, “…We support whatever he wants to think about it, because it's his life.” But the actor also maintained that “the show doesn’t want to show one truth” and that “the show has to show different views depending on who's telling the story, based on research and facts and opinions.”
Sevigny agreed that Erik, Lyle, and the Menéndez family “have a right to say their opinion and to vocalize it and make as many statements as they want to make.” She also added that Netflix has a separate documentary about the Menéndez brothers forthcoming “where they tell their side of the story.” “I think it’s admirable of Netflix to give them that platform to reach as many people as they want to tell their side of the story, and I'm very interested to tune in and hear them,” she said.
In his own comments to Variety, Lane said that “one has to take” Erik’s criticism “with a grain of salt” since he hasn’t seen the show. Acknowledging to Variety that “not everything might be flattering or make you happy,” the actor said, “But I would say you should probably see it before you speak out again.”
At a press conference on October 3, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón announced that the brothers would get a court hearing in light of the discovery of new evidence of alleged sexual abuse of Erik by his father, Variety reported. Gascón said that new evidence necessitates a reevaluation of the case. “[W]e have a moral and an ethical obligation to review what is being presented to us,” he said, per Variety. The new hearing, which will take place on November 29, could potentially lead to a retrial or resentencing of the brothers.
The new material includes a photocopy of a letter allegedly sent by Erik in 1988 to his cousin, in which Erik appears to discuss being abused by his father, as well as new evidence that José Menéndez allegedly sexually abused a member of the band Menudo.
Though 2022’s Dahmer: Monster — The Jeffrey Dahmer Story was not originally presented as a multi-season show, it was renewed for a second and third season after the show became a streaming hit.
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Netflix revealed in a tweet just before the debut of the current season of Monsters that there would be a third season about murderer Ed Gein, who will be portrayed by Sons of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam.
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