What Netflix got right and (very) wrong about the Menendez brothers' murder case.

This post features details of child sexual abuse that could be triggering for some readers.

Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan's second season of Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story is causing loads of controversy from all corners of the internet.

The series is a dramatisation of the complicated story of the Menéndez brothers, Lyle and Erik, who murdered their parents José and Kitty in 1989.

The brothers claim they murdered as an act of self-defence following years of alleged physical, emotional and sexual abuse.

In particular, the sons allege they were molested by their father — Lyle from ages 6 to 8 and Erik from the ages 6 to 18 — with their harrowing claims relayed in unflinching detail in the limited series.

In 1996, the siblings were each convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

In the nine-part series, Lyle is played by Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Erik by Cooper Koch, with Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny portraying their controversial parents.

Lyle is played by Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Erik by Cooper Koch. Image: Netflix.

In response to the Netflix series debut, Erik released a statement on Lyle's social media to slam the series, in particular how the show depicted his brother Lyle, who does appear cartoonishly villainous in select moments.

"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," it read. "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."

His statement continued, "It is sad for me to know that Netflix's dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime have taken the painful truths several steps backward — back through time to an era when the prosecution built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused, and that males experienced rape trauma differently than women."

"Is the truth not enough? Let the truth stand as the truth."

The show's creator has since responded to Erik.

"I think it's interesting that he's issued a statement without having seen the show," Ryan Murphy told Entertainment Tonight. "It's really, really hard — if it's your life — to see your life up on screen."

He continued, "If you watch the show, I would say 60–65 per cent of our show centers around the abuse and what they claimed happened to them. And we do it very carefully and we give them their day in court and they talk openly about it."

When pushed on why he had included some more controversial scenes that suggested the brothers had been 'lovers' — based on theories made by one reporter at the time — Murphy claimed, "We are presenting [other] points of view. We had an obligation to show all of that and we did."

Erik's wife Tammi recently called the show a "grotesque shockadrama" and "a phobic, gross, anachronistic, serial episodic nightmare that is not only riddled with mistruths and outright falsehoods but ignores the most recent exculpatory revelations."

Murphy has addressed the backlash via Variety, calling the Menéndez family's response "predictable at best."

"I find it interesting because I would like specifics about what they think is shocking or not shocking," he said. "It's not like we're making any of this stuff up. It's all been presented before. We're the first to present it in one contained ecosystem. What's grotesque about it?"

Controversially, Murphy went on to claim that Monsters is "the best thing that has happened to the Menéndez brothers in 30 years."

"They are now being talked about by millions of people all over the world. There's a documentary coming out into two weeks about them, also on Netflix. We're asking really difficult questions, and it's giving these brothers another trial in the court of public opinion. From what I can tell, it's really opened up the possibility that this evidence that they claim that they have, maybe that there is going to be a way forward for them."

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Cooper Koch visited Lyle and Erik Menéndez in prison, after playing Erik in the series, alongside Kim Kardashian (yes, that one). But Murphy says he wasn't keen to join.

"I have no interest in talking to them," he says. "It's very good that Cooper has a relationship with them, and I'm very close, obviously, with Kim Kardashian, who has spoken to them. I love Kim, and I believe she does God's work. I believe in prison reform. I believe in everything she believes in. I don't know what I would say to them. What would I ask them? I know what their perspective is."

"I believe in justice, but I don't believe in being a part of that machine," Murphy said of advocating for the brothers. "That's not my job. My job as an artist was to tell a perspective in a particular story. I feel I've done that, but I wish them well."

So what does Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menéndez Story get right and (very) wrong about the brothers' notorious case? We've rounded up the facts to separate from the fiction.

The therapist confession was based on what actually happened.

The tense first episode of the Netflix series shows Erik confessing to the murders to the family therapist in a panicked frenzy. They were eventually arrested after the therapist's mistress told police they had confessed.

This is accurate to the real events. Erik and Lyle were arrested based on the recorded confession delivered to their therapist Dr. L. Jerome Oziel. The police were tipped off by Judalon Smyth, who told them after Oziel ended their affair.

The detail that wasn't shown was that, due to Oziel violating patient confidentiality, he lost his license to practice in 1997.

Dallas Roberts as Dr L Jerome Oziel. Image: Netflix.

The incest suggestions between the brothers were fictionalised.

There are two scenes in the series that had drawn significant outrage from viewers: when Erik and Lyle share a brief kiss in episode two and when their mother finds them showering together in episode seven.

While not explicitly stated in the series, it's safe to assume that the creators are suggesting the brothers had an incestual relationship. However, both brothers testified in their trial that they never had a sexual relationship with one another.

The author of 2018's The Menéndez Murders book, Robert Rand, has rejected any insinuations that the brothers had a sexual relationship.

"I don't believe that Erik and Lyle Menéndez were ever lovers," Rand said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. 

He noted that there was claims at the time from reporter Dominick Dunne that the brothers had an unconventional bond.

"I think that's a fantasy that was in the mind of Dominick Dunne [portrayed by Nathan Lane]," he added.

"Rumors were going around the trial that maybe there was some sort of weird relationship between Erik and Lyle themselves, but I believe the only physical contact they might have had is what Lyle testified, that when Lyle was 8 years old, he took Erik out in the woods and played with him with a toothbrush — which is what [their father] José had done with him," he continued.

"I certainly wouldn't call that a sexual relationship of any sort. It's a response to trauma."

In response to the criticism over the made up scenes, Murphy said that "what the show is doing is presenting the points of view and theories from so many people who were involved in the case. Dominick Dunne wrote several articles talking about that theory. We are presenting his point of view… we had an obligation to show all of that, and we did."

The toupee scene was based on actual events.

In one powerful scene, Lyle is arguing with his mother Kitty when he calls her a hypocrite and in a fit of rage, Kitty rips the toupee off his head. This was the first time Erik found out his brother wore a toupee which led to the moment where they both opened up about the sexual abuse they had endured from their father.

This was based on very real events.

According to USA Today, Lyle testified about the incident in court, telling the jury "She reached, and she grabbed my hairpiece and she just ripped it off." He noted that his brother "didn't know I had a hairpiece. I was completely embarrassed in front of my brother."

Dunne wrote in Vanity Fair article at the time that the hairpiece discovery was a catalyst for the murder.

"The defense further claimed that the sight of his older brother's baldness and the sudden awareness of his brother's vulnerability and embarrassment freed Erik to confess to Lyle his own deep secret, that their father had been sexually molesting him for 12 years," he wrote.

"Menéndez's state-of-the-art hairpiece, or toupee, or wig, or hair replacement, as his very expensive rug was variously called, became a constant prop in the trial, almost as important as the two missing Mossberg 12-gauge shotguns the brothers used to blow away their parents."

In Rand's book, he wrote that like in the series, Lyle began wearing a toupee after his father insisted that "to be successful, he'd need a thick head of hair."

The toupee scene was based on true events. Image: Netflix.

The night of the murders was a little different.

Some details in the murders were accurate while other were dramatically different.

For one thing, José was actually shot point blank in the back of the head, which suggests he didn't know it was his sons shooting, but in the series the father knew it was Erik and Lyle.

But one thing the Netflix series did stay true to was that Lyle did go outside to the car to load up more bullets after his mother didn't die instantly when they shot her.

Then there was the brothers' alibi, which in the series saw Lyle and Erik attempt to buy movie tickets for an earlier session before dropping into Taste of L.A. to insure they had been seen out and about when the murders were occurring.

None of this happened.

The brother remained at the house the entire time and later told police they had gone to the movies and a bar. Erik later shared their surprise at no one showing up at their house, which meant Lyle had to make the notorious phone call to 911.

"Twelve shots in the middle of Beverly Hills on a Sunday night, and no one calls the police. We're waiting at the house, and no one shows up. I still can't believe it," Erik told ABC News in 1996. "We didn't have an alibi, all we did was say we were at the movies."

The post-murders spending spree was true.

As they did in the Netflix series, the brothers did get rather loose with their spending in the days after the murders. They stayed at the Hotel Bel Air for a few days before moving into various luxury hotels and settled in adjoining condominiums in Marina Del Rey.

The spending spree included limousines, a Porsche Carrera, bodyguards, and watches, totaling roughly US $700,000 which would be closer to US $1.5 million today (over AUD $2 million).

That bizarre funeral song actually played.

Monsters begins with the brothers travelling in a limousine to their parents' funeral. After the eulogies are delivered, a bizarrely upbeat song plays: Milli Vanilli's 'Girl I'm Gonna Miss You'.

This did indeed happen at the real-life funeral.

The show strayed from the true story on more than one occasion. Image: Netflix.

The OJ Simpson cameo was actually legit.

If you've watched any of Ryan Murphy's shows, you'll know the man loves a random historical cameo whether it's accurate or not.

But with OJ Simpson's very random appearance in the season's final episode, the Netflix show actually reflected a real-life crossover that transpired.

While Erik was being held at Los Angeles jail at length, Simpson was held in a cell next to him. In fact, Netflix downplayed how much the two spoke with a quick throwaway scene in the series, but it was actually a conversation spanning 10 days.

Simpson was a friend of the Menéndez family, as they had met Jose when he was an executive at RCA's Hertz and the father had invited Simpson to his home where he met Lyle and Erik when they were small children.

The only discrepancy between the series and real-life event is that Lyle was the one who offered OJ advice, instead of Erik.

"O.J. and Lyle Menéndez spent many hours in the jail's attorney room while waiting for their attorneys or material witnesses," Rand wrote in his book. "For 100 hours of contact between the two inmates, the two high-profile prisoners talked openly and exchanged dozens of letters.

"Lyle advised O.J. he should consider taking a plea deal and O.J. briefly considered that option — according to Lyle — but later told Menéndez he couldn't do that because it would ruin his reputation and he would never work again."

Erik Menéndez's trial testimony was delivered word-for-word based on his actual court response.

A clip of Erik's real testimony has been doing the rounds online and it shows that the Netflix writers stayed true to exactly what was said between Erik and his defence attorney Leslie Abramson.

Viewers have noted a difference between the emotions conveyed between Erik's testimony and Koch's performance, but both men struggled to speak when answering questions about the alleged abuse he'd suffered at the hands of Lyle.

@truth.about.menendez

Erik's comparison of his first testimony. I said it before and I say it again. No other actor can portray the raw emotions as they did on the stand back in 1993. Those emotions were real, no acting #fypシ #justiceforthemenendezbrothers #erikmenendez #lylemenendez #menendezbrothers #menendez #monstersnetflix #menendezcase #menendezbrotherscase #viral #trending

♬ Stargazing (Slowed + Reverb) - Marcelo De Carvalho

Their mother Kitty might have been worse in real life.

Monsters included several moments where the brothers suggested that their mother Kitty knew what was allegedly happening to her kids.

However, the mother's own alleged abuse was largely downplayed in the series with much more emphasis on the father.

Lyle testified that his mother was "very strange", detailing past incidents when he alleged she was violent and sexually abused him.

Until he was 13, he said his mother would wash his body "everywhere," and invite him into bed with her to touch her "everywhere."

She would frequently be naked in the presence of her sons.

The brothers claim she was also emotionally abusive, as Lyle testified that when the family's first pet ferret died, she had it stuffed and mounted on a log and kept it on the TV "so she could always see it."

Lyle added that Kitty was physically violent and would beat him, kick him, drag him by his hair and one time, she chased him around the house with a knife.

If this post brings up any issues for you, you can contact Bravehearts (an organisation providing support to victims of child abuse) here. 

If you are concerned about the welfare of a child you can get advice from the Child Abuse Protection Hotline by calling 1800 688 009, or visiting their website. You can also call the 24- hour Child Abuse Report Line (131 478). 

Feature image: Getty/Netflix.