Erik Menéndez slams Ryan Murphy's “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story”: 'Horrible and blatant lies'

Menéndez called its portrayals of his brother and him "vile and appalling" and deemed the series "disheartening slander."

Erik Menéndez is speaking out against Ryan Murphy's latest series.

In a statement his wife, Tammi Menéndez, shared on social media, the convicted killer criticized Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story for its portrayal of his brother Lyle and him.

"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 begins. "I can only believe they were done so on purpose."

Menéndez called out Murphy specifically, accusing him of intentionally misrepresenting his family. "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," he wrote. "Murphy shapes his horrible narrative through vile and appalling character portrayals of Lyle and of me and disheartening slander."

Representatives for Murphy did not immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly’s request for comment.

Related: Monsters star Nicholas Alexander Chavez hadn't heard of Menéndez brothers until auditioning for part of Lyle

Menéndez specifically took issue with the show's depiction of sexual abuse. "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," he wrote. "Those awful lies have been disrupted and exposed by countless brave victims over the last two decades who have broken through their personal shame and bravely spoken out."

Menéndez continued, "Is the truth not enough? Let the truth stand as the truth."

He also characterized the showrunner as an impediment to the cause of supporting trauma victims. "How demoralizing to know that one man with power can undermine decades of progress in shedding light on childhood trauma," he wrote. "Violence is never an answer, never a solution, and is always tragic. As such, I hope it is never forgotten that violence against a child creates a hundred horrendous and silent crime scenes darkly shadowed behind glitter and glamor and rarely exposed until tragedy penetrates everyone involved."

Related: American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez goes too easy on the NFL

Menéndez concluded his remarks with a note of gratitude. "To all those who have reached out and supported me, thank you from the bottom of my heart."

The Menéndez brothers were convicted in 1996 for the 1989 killing of their parents, José and Kitty Menéndez. They were first tried in separate cases, resulting in jury deadlocks, but were later convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder in a joint case that excluded testimony of their father sexually abusing them. Both brothers are currently serving a life sentence at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility near San Diego.

Related: Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story trailer plays with what really happened

Monsters premiered Sept. 19 on Netflix. The series marks the second installment of Murphy's Monster anthology, following 2022's Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. The fictionalized retelling of the Menéndez siblings' story stars Cooper Koch as Erik Menéndez, Nicholas Alexander Chavez as Lyle Menéndez, Chloë Sevigny as Kitty Menéndez, Javier Bardem as José Menéndez, and Nathan Lane as journalist Dominick Dunne. The next iteration of the show will star Charlie Hunnam as killer Ed Gein.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.