Ryan Murphy On ‘Monsters’ Criticism From Menendez Brothers’ Family Who Call Series “Phobic” & “Gross”: “I Feel Like That’s Faux Outrage”

Armando Tinoco
·3-min read

Ryan Murphy is firing back at criticism for his Netflix series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story from the Menendez brothers’ family.

In a new interview, the series creator says he is “used to being controversial” and comments on the general culture.

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“I feel like that’s faux outrage,” Murphy told People. “Because if you look at what we do, we give those boys so much airtime to talk about what they claim as their physical abuse. We live in a sort of culture of outrage that a lot of things are knee-jerk, and that’s fine. I’m used to being controversial. It’s not new to me.”

Earlier this week, Erik’s wife, Tammi Menendez, shared a letter written by his aunt, Joan VanderMolen, criticizing the series.

“We are virtually the entire extended family of Erik and Lyle Menendez,” VanderMolen stated in the letter posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “We are 24 strong and today we want the world to know we support Erik and Lyle. 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.

“Ryan Murphy’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is a phobic, gross, anachronistic, serial episodic nightmare that is not only riddled with mistruths and outright falsehoods but ignores the most recent exculpatory revelations. 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.”

RELATED: ‘Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story’ Cast And Character Guide: Who Plays Who?

Murphy said that the series is “the best thing that has happened to the Menendez brothers in 30 years,” adding, “It’s everywhere. Their case is suddenly a water cooler conversation.”

“A lot of people think that they were dealt a bad hand in that second trial, a lot of people think they should get a new trial, and I think having those conversations are good,” Murphy says. “And I know that from prison, the boys have told people in prison that they’re glad about this show because it is launching so many conversations. So, if we’re doing anything that can further a conversation about abuse and also ask the question is, ‘was that second trial fair?’ then I did my job.”

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story chronicles the case of the real-life brothers who were convicted in 1996 for the murders of their parents, José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menéndez. The nine-episode series stars Javier Bardem, Chloë Sevigny, Cooper Koch, Nicholas Alexander Chávez, Nathan Lane, and Ari Graynor.

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