In a statement released by his wife Tammi Menendez, Erik Menendez criticizes the Netflix series “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” based on the 1989 murder of Jose and Kitty Menendez, as “horrific lies” and a “horrific narrative.”
Tammi Menendez, who married Erik Menendez in 1999, released the statement on X on September 19, the day “Monsters” hit the streaming platform.
“Erik’s response to the Netflix series,” she tweeted.
“The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” is the second season of Ryan Murphy’s “Monster” anthology, which began with a series about Jeffrey Dahmer.
The nine-part series follows the background and aftermath of the murder of Jose and Kitty Menendez on August 20, 1989.
Joseph “Lyle” Menendez, now 56, and Erik Menendez, now 53, were convicted of the murders in 1996 after two trials. They were sentenced to life imprisonment without parole and remain incarcerated.
Tammi Menendez’s X-Account has posted updates about Erik Menendez for years, including his alleged reaction to “Monsters.” TODAY.com contacted an attorney for Lyle and Erik Menendez and provided Tammi Menendez’s numbers, but did not receive a response as of publication time.
“I thought we had moved beyond the lies and devastating character portrayals of Lyle, creating a caricature of Lyle based on horrific and obvious lies that were rampant on the show,” began the statement posted by Tammi Menendez. “I can only believe they were done on purpose. It is with a heavy heart that I must say that I believe Ryan Murphy cannot be so naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives to do this without malicious intent.”
The statement went on to call the show a “dishonest portrayal” and criticized its depiction of the sexual abuse that Erik and Lyle Menendez accused their father of in the first trial, which ended without a unanimous jury decision.
Lyle and Erik Menendez testified, according to journalist Robert Rand’s “The Menendez Murders,” that their father began abusing them when they were each 6 years old. But prosecutors in the first trial argued that the brothers killed their parents for the wealth in their estate.
In a second trial that began in 1995, the allegations of abuse were deemed inadmissible.
“It saddens me to know that Netflix’s dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime has pushed the painful truths back several steps – back to an era when prosecutors built their narrative on a belief system that men were not sexually assaulted and that men experienced rape trauma differently than women,” Tammi Menendez said in a statement.
“How demoralizing it is to know that one man with power can undo decades of progress in understanding childhood trauma,” the statement continued. “Violence is never an answer, never a solution, and always tragic. So I hope it will never be forgotten that violence against a child creates a hundred horrific and silent crime scenes, darkly hidden behind glitz and glamour, rarely revealed until the tragedy penetrates all involved.”
TODAY.com did not immediately receive a response from representatives for Netflix and Murphy.
Since its premiere on Thursday, “Monsters” has also been criticized by viewers for scenes that suggest an intimate relationship between the brothers. In the second episode of the series, the brothers kiss and dance seductively as if at a party. Rand’s book, “The Menendez Murders,” does not suggest that the brothers had a sexual relationship.
Murphy has not publicly responded to the backlash.
