Following backlash for the portrayal of Erik and Lyle Menendez in Netflix’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, an professional on the case is talking out.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter following the Sept. 19 launch of the latest of Ryan Murphy’s Monsters collection, Robert Rand set the document straight on the variations between the present and actuality. Because the writer of 2018’s The Menendez Murders guide, Rand mentioned there have been a number of falsities within the present.
“I don’t imagine that Erik and Lyle Menendez have been ever lovers,” he mentioned. “I believe that’s a fantasy that was within the thoughts of Dominick Dunne [the reporter in the series portrayed by Nathan Lane].”
“Rumors have been going across the trial that possibly there was some kind of bizarre relationship between Erik and Lyle themselves, however I imagine the one bodily contact they could have had is what Lyle testified, that when Lyle was 8 years previous, he took Erik out within the woods and performed with him with a toothbrush — which is what [their father] José had accomplished with him,” he continued.
He added: “I actually wouldn’t name {that a} sexual relationship of any type. It’s a response to trauma.”
Representatives for Murphy and Netflix didn’t instantly reply to PEOPLE’s request for remark.
Within the nine-episode restricted collection, episode 2 exhibits Erik and Lyle sharing a kiss, whereas episode 6 options their mom discovering them showering collectively. The brothers had testified of their trial that they by no means had a sexual relationship with each other.
Erik launched a statement slamming the collection after it premiered, which was additionally posted on Lyle’s social media.
“I believed we had moved past the lies and ruinous character portrayals of Lyle, making a caricature of Lyle rooted in horrible and blatant [lies] rampant within the present,” it learn. “I can solely imagine they have been accomplished so on goal. It’s with a heavy coronary heart that I say, I imagine Ryan Murphy can’t be this naive and inaccurate in regards to the details of our lives in order to do that with out unhealthy intent.”
“It’s unhappy for me to know that Netflix’s dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime have taken the painful truths a number of steps backward — again via time to an period when the prosecution constructed a story on a perception system that males weren’t sexually abused, and that males skilled rape trauma otherwise than girls,” Erik continued. “These terrible lies have been disrupted and uncovered by numerous courageous victims over the past 20 years who’ve damaged via their private disgrace and bravely spoken out. So now Murphy shapes his horrible narrative via vile and appalling character portrayals of Lyle and of me and disheartening slander.”
“Is the reality not sufficient? Let the reality stand as the reality,” he concluded. “How demoralizing is it to know that one man with energy can undermine a long time of progress in shedding gentle on childhood trauma.”
Lyle and Erik, then 21 and 18, killed their parents, José and Kitty Menendez, with 12-gauge shotguns at their Beverly Hills house in 1989, claiming self-defense. They have been later prosecuted and accused of doing it for his or her household’s over $14 million fortune, however the brothers have maintained that it was resulting from psychological, bodily and sexual abuse that had been occurring.
“I’m not saying what I did was right or justifiable. I wanted to go to jail. However place one other baby in my life and see what occurs,” Erik instructed PEOPLE in 2005. “I felt it was both my life or my mother and father’ life. … Being arrested was such a reduction. My life was over and I used to be glad. I didn’t need the cash.”
Although many have criticized the collection for its false portrayals, others have defended the challenge, together with the brother of Cooper Koch, who performs Erik within the collection.
“I will not converse for Cooper however I’ll say that he cares immensely for the boys and stands with them and all victims of abuse,” Payton wrote on Instagram on Sept. 20. “He did the whole lot he might to make sure their tales of abuse have been seen on display and I believe in episode 5, it’s abundantly clear the place he stands.”
Payton, who’s a movie editor who has labored on Solely Murders within the Constructing, added that actors are “solely vessels for the writers/producers of the present. Any true story portrayal goes to be robust, however please belief me after I say he does care about them and their story ❤️🩹.”
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Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is now streaming on Netflix.