"Virtually the entire extended" Menendez family detests Ryan Murphy's Monsters
Lyle and Erik Menendez's family calls Ryan Murphy's series "a phobic, gross, anachronistic, serial episodic nightmare"
Photo by: Charley Gallay/Getty Images
Following Erik Menendez’s statement condemning Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, the brothers’ family members have joined him in speaking out against Ryan Murphy’s true crime series. “We are virtually the entire extended family of Erik and Lyle Menéndez. We are 24 strong and today we want the world to know we support Erik and Lyle,” their statement, posted to social media, reads. “We individually and collectively pray for their release after being imprisoned for 35 years. We know them, love them, and want them home with us.”
The statement, which was shared by Erik’s wife Tammy and attributed to the brothers’ aunt Joan VanderMolen and family, describes the show 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.” It continues, “Our family has been victimized by this grotesque shockadrama. 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.”
This is the official response from Joan VanderMolen (Erik’s Aunt) and the Menendez Family to the Netflix Series” “Monsters, the Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” and to Ryan Murphy.#Menendez #NetflixMonsters #RyanMurphy pic.twitter.com/o7KEOEoYwr
— Tammi Menendez (@TammiMenendez1) September 26, 2024
The statement expresses support for the incarcerated brothers and accuses Murphy and Netflix of “character assassination.” Netflix will soon release a documentary The Menendez Brothers on the same subject, this time featuring actual interviews with the brothers themselves. In that way, Netflix gets to play both sides of the issue.
For his part, Murphy has responded to some of the criticism by saying to E! News (via Deadline), “Our view and what we wanted to do was present you all the facts and have you do two things: make up your own mind about who’s innocent, who’s guilty, and who’s the monster, and also have a conversation about something that’s never talked about in our culture, which is male sexual abuse, which we do responsibly.”
The Menendez family would disagree. “It is sad that Ryan Murphy, Netflix, and all others involved in this series, do not have an understanding of the impact of years of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse,” their statement concludes. “Perhaps, after all, Monsters is all about Ryan Murphy.”