Erik Menendez isn't happy about a Netflix series he says contains “ruinous character portrayals” of himself and his brother.
The Ryan Murphy-led "Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story” has already attracted heaps of outrage and disgust from viewers for its glamorization of the killers and its tacked-on, incestuous subplot. Erik had a different problem with the dramatization of the pair, who murdered their parents in 1989, and raised those concerns in a Facebook post on Friday.
"It is sad to know that Netflix's dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime have taken the painful truths several steps backward," he shared in a note posted to Lyle Menendez's Facebook page.
Erik went on to say that the show amounted to "disheartening slander” and that he didn't think Murphy was "naive" enough to have shaped the show that way on accident.
“Is the truth not enough?” Erik wrote. “How demoralizing to know that one man with power can undermine decades of progress in shedding light on childhood trauma.”
Erik and Lyle have spoken in detail about the childhood sexual abuse they experienced leading up to the killing and Erik argued that the show downplays the stories of sexual abuse survivors.
"The prosecution built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused, and that males experienced rape and trauma differently than women,” Erik shared. "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.”
The brothers were sentenced to life in prison in 1996 after their second trial for the murder of their parents. That trial limited the use of evidence related to their abuse after a first trial resulted in a hung jury.
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