Hollywood juggernaut Ryan Murphy has defended his latest Netflix series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story after criticism from one of the show’s main titular characters Erik Menendez.
During a red carpet interview on Monday, Murphy defended the show, noting how hard it would be for the brothers to reconcile with their feelings after their story became a TV show.
“I think it’s interesting that he’s issued a statement without having seen the show,” he told Entertainment Tonight.
“It’s really, really hard, if it’s your life, to see your life up onscreen.”
The true-crime drama, released last week, chronicles the life and crimes of Erik and Lyle Menendez, who were convicted of murdering their parents José and Kitty Menendez in 1996.
Erik and Lyle are currently incarcerated at California’s Donovan Correctional Facility and are therefore not able to watch Netflix. However, that hasn’t stopped the younger brother from sharing his thoughts on the show in an X (formerly Twitter) post shared by his wife Tammi Menendez.
“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,” he said. “I can only believe they were done so on purpose.”
He went on to slam Murphy specifically, claiming that the show was a step backwards for male rape victims.
“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.
“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.”
Noting that the brothers have not seen the show, Murphy pointed out that the scripts centre mostly around their own abuse claims.
“The thing that I find interesting that [Erik] doesn’t mention in his quote is, if you watch the show, I would say 60 to 65 percent of our show in the scripts, and in the film form, center around the abuse and what they claim happened to them,” he told ET.
“And we do it very carefully, and we give them their day in court, and they talk openly about it. In this age, where people can really talk about sexual abuse, talking about it and writing about it and writing about all points of view can be controversial.”
He also said that “there were four people involved” and that “two of them are dead”, so he had a duty to tell both sides of the story as best they could.
“What about the parents? We had an obligation as storytellers to also try to put in their perspective based on our research, which we did,” he said.
Despite Erik having also criticised Netflix in his scathing assessment of the series, the pair are currently working on their own documentary with the streaming giant — due out later this year.
The Menendez Brothers documentary — streaming October 7 — will tell the story “for the first time in 30 years, and in their own words.”
“Through extensive audio interviews with Lyle and Erik, lawyers involved in the trial, journalists who covered it, jurors, family and other informed observers, acclaimed Argentinian director Alejandro Hartmann offers new insight and a fresh perspective on a case that people only think they know,” a description for the documentary reads.
You can stream Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story on Netflix now.
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