Ryan Murphy says Menéndez brothers should be ‘sending him flowers’ over Monsters publicity

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story creator Ryan Murphy has said that the real life subjects of his Netflix dramatisation should be thanking him for the “publicity” generated by the series.

Released as the second part in Murphy’s already-controversial Monsters anthology on Netflix, The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story is a dramatisation of the siblings’ infamous murder of their own parents in 1989. Both were sentenced to life in prison after claiming in court that they were sexually abused by their father.

The series has faced criticism by viewers, who have accused Murphy of creating “incestuous fetish porn”, and by one of the brothers himself, Erik Menéndez, who labelled the series purposefully “naive and inaccurate”.

Though actor Cooper Koch has said that he empathises with Erik, whom he plays in the series, it seems that creator and co-writer Ryan Murphy does not share the same stance.

“I’ll tell you my thoughts about the Menéndez brothers,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.

“The Menéndez brothers should be sending me flowers. They haven’t had so much attention in 30 years. And it’s gotten the attention of not only this country, but all over the world.

“There’s sort of an outpouring of interest in their lives and in the case. I know for a fact that many people have offered to help them because of the interest of my show and what we did.”

Murphy, who previously stated that he had “no interest” in speaking to Lyle and Erik, continued by admitting that, “there is no world that we live in where the Menéndez brothers or their wives or lawyers would say, ‘You know what, that was a wonderful, accurate depiction of our clients,'” but that, “was never going to happen, and I wasn’t interested in that happening.”

Erik Menéndez criticised Ryan Murphy’s Monsters via his wife Tammie’s X account, writing, “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. I can only believe [this was] done 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.”

Murphy previously responded by telling Entertainment Tonight, “It’s interesting that he’s issued a statement without having seen the show. I know he hasn’t seen the show in prison. I hope he does see the show. I think it’s really hard, if it’s your life, to see your life up on screen.

“The thing I find interesting, that he doesn’t mention, and that nobody from that side of the isle was talking about, is, if you watch the show, I would say 60 to 65 per cent, in the scripts and in the film form, centres around the abuse and what they claim happened to them.

“We do it very carefully and we give them their day in court and talk openly about it. We present the facts from their point of view.”

In court, the brothers claimed that they killed their father José (played in Monsters by Javier Bardem) out of fear of what he would do after they threatened to expose his alleged sexual abuse. The prosecution argued that the brothers committed to murders to inherit their father’s estate.

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is streaming on Netflix now.

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