The story of the Menendez brothers has taken the world by storm, once again. This time, there is controversy surrounding the Netflix show, Monsters; The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, co-created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan. The show is listed as a “fictional, scripted series,” and viewers were directed to “find more about the true story in the documentary, The Menendez Brothers.”
However, the inaccuracies and portrayals of the brothers and their story have still sparked lots of discussion and rage from viewers, even receiving comment from Erik Menendez himself, who called the show a “vile and appalling character portrayal of Lyle and me.” So the question still circulates: What actually happened in the Menendez home before the murders of José and Kitty Menendez, and what happened in the years that followed?
Now, Monsters was not entirely inaccurate. The show depicts that Lyle and Erik were arrested after Judalon Smyth told the police the brothers had confessed to Dr. Jerome Oziel on tape, which she did after Oziel broke off their affair. This is true, and Smyth ended up being a key witness in the Menendez brothers’ case when she decided to no longer help the prosecution.
Also factual was the shark fishing trip taken by the family before the murders, which is where the brothers believed their parents would kill them. The hung jury in the first trial and biased judge of the second trial did happen, as the judge limited testimony about the brothers’ alleged abuse in the second trial.
The spending spree, Lyle’s hairpiece being ripped off by his mother, and Erik’s screenplay are also elements of the Netflix show that did in fact happen in real life.
While Murphy and Brennan got some things right, those facts weren’t enough for viewers to shy away from the fiction, some of it absurd. In the show, a woman named Norma Novelli secretly recorded her phone calls with the imprisoned Lyle and published his words, where he said he knows how to move a jury. Novelli did in fact record and sell Lyle’s words without his consent, but it was he who chose to abstain from testimony after that, where in the show the Menendez brother is barred from testifying at the second trial.
Frequently touched on by the writers of Monsters is Erik’s sexuality. Erik, portrayed by Cooper Koch, is seen participating in acts that could be considered homosexual. But actually, Erik Menendez has said numerous times, including in a 1996 interview with Barbara Walters, that he is straight, and the prosecution only released this fabricated claim to prove that Erik “enjoyed” the abuse endured from his father.
One of the biggest arguments in current media is whether or not Lyle Menendez was as aggressive and angry as Nicholas Chavez played him to be. In the show, Kitty stated a few times she was “scared” of her son. He is seen yelling at her multiple times. The truth is, Lyle had always been a more quiet kid growing up, except for when he would stand up to his dad. Murphy told The Hollywood Reporter that he was never interested in a world where the wives or lawyers of the Menendez brothers would say they were accurately depicted, and he knew it was “never going to happen.”
Murphy informs that the story was a very broad canvas. They were not just telling the story of the brothers, but of every other character too. He felt he had an obligation to express the points-of-view of everyone, which is why the show is not a representation of what seems to be correct according to details from the trials that took place from 1993-1996.
If you are looking to watch something with the goal of entertainment over facts, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is certainly a good show to check out. If you are interested in accurate portrayals of the story, Netflix’s The Menendez Brothers documentary is a great place to start.