Ryan Murphy calls the Menéndez Brothers “disgusting” and “reprehensible” for “playing the victim card”

It follows recent criticism of his Netflix series 'Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story'

Ryan Murphy has hit out at the Menéndez brothers following their recent criticism of the Netflix series Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story.

• READ MORE: Ryan Murphy’s American success story: how the prolific producer became TV’s creative kingpin

The show stars Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch as the Menéndez brothers, who murdered their parents, José and Kitty, with a shotgun at their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989.

Erik Menéndez recently criticised the series, calling it a “dishonest portrayal”, which Murphy defended and said: “I know he hasn’t watched the show.”

Now, Murphy has hit back at the brothers again in a new interview with the Hollywood Reporter.

He said: “Ian [Brennan, co-creator] and I set out to do exactly what we wanted to do. And I’ll tell you my thoughts about the Menéndez brothers. 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. 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.’ That was never going to happen, and I wasn’t interested in that happening.”

Recommended

Murphy went on to say that “we were telling a story that was a very broad canvas”.

He added: “We were telling the story of Dominick Dunne [the reporter in the series played by Nathan Lane], of Leslie Abramson [played by Ari Graynor]. We were also telling the story of the parents [José and Kitty Menendez, played by Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny], who they blew their heads off; we were also telling their story.

“We had an obligation to so many people, not just to Erik and Lyle. But that’s what I find so fascinating; that they’re playing the victim card right now – ‘poor, pitiful us’ – which I find reprehensible and disgusting.

“I also think that two things can be true at the same time. I think they could have killed their parents, and also had been abused. They could have been of ambiguous moral character as young people, and be rehabilitated now. So I think that story is complicated.”

The show also recently attracted criticism for depicting an incestuous relationship between the brothers, with scenes depicting them kissing.

Following criticism of the show, Erik released a statement posted by his wife Tammi on social media, which read: “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. I can only believe they were done so 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.”

An expert also rubbished the incestuous relationship plotline in Ryan Murphy’s fictional adaptation.

The Menéndez brothers have since become involved with a new Netflix documentary on their story which will arrive on the streaming platform on October 7.

According to a press release, it promises to “offer new insight and a fresh perspective on a case that people only think they know”.

When asked about the documentary, Murphy added: “I’m not going to watch it, because I’m not interested in anything else about the Menéndez brothers. I don’t want to watch the documentary. I have no interest in meeting them. I have no interest in talking to their lawyers or their wives. I’ve just sort of done it, because I was telling a bigger story, a cultural story. I wasn’t doing a biography of them. I was telling a story about a certain place and time.

“The story has always fascinated people, including myself, because we’ll never really know what happened. It is an unknowable mystery. There were four people involved in that story and two of them were shot in the face. So I think that the public’s fascination is limitless, because there’s no answer. We will never know if they told the truth, we will never know if they were sexually abused for sure. We will never know if the parents were the monsters.”