Ryan Murphy on Menendez Brothers Retrial and Monsters Backlash

Ryan Murphy is pushing back against members of Erik and Lyle Menendez’s family who have labeled Netflix’s “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” a “grotesque shockadrama.”

“The family’s reaction is predictable at best,” Murphy said, just hours after the family’s statement was released on social media through Erik’s wife Tammi. “I find it interesting because I would like details about what they find shocking or not. It’s not like we make this stuff up. It’s all been presented before. What we do is we are the first to present it in one closed ecosystem. What’s grotesque about it? … Tammi (and) the family, they’ve always done this and they’ve done this recently – they say ‘lies after lies’ – but then they don’t say what the lies are. They don’t back up anything.”

The Menendez brothers are currently serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for the 1989 first-degree murder of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez. The series dramatizes the murders and subsequent trials that ended in their 1996 conviction.

Murphy also shares that he believes “Monsters” is “the best thing to happen to the Menendez brothers in thirty years.” He continues: “It is now being talked about by millions of people around the world. A documentary about them will be released in two weeks, also on Netflix. And I think what’s interesting about it is that people are asked to answer the questions, ‘Should they get a new trial? Should they be released from prison? What is happening in our society? Should people be locked up for life? Is there never a chance for rehabilitation?’ I’m interested in that and a lot of people are talking about it. We’re asking very difficult questions, and it gives these brothers a new trial in the court of public opinion. As far as I can see, it has really opened up the possibility that this evidence that they claim to have might be a path forward for them.

Murphy believes that if the trial were held today, the brothers might have received a lesser charge of manslaughter and a lighter sentence. “The second trial was a mockery. “I think it’s crazy that all the evidence that they claim actually happened should not be admissible,” he said. ‘That’s a mistake. I find the behavior of those male jurors disgraceful. I think a lot of those jurors were homophobic. I think they refused to accept the idea that sexual abuse could happen to men. I find that scandalous. So what do I think? I think if there is new evidence, it should be heard. Personally, I don’t believe that anyone should spend their entire life in prison.”

Cooper Koch, who plays Erik, is speaking exclusively Variety that he first spoke to the real Erik the night before the series premiered on Netflix. About a week later, he met Erik and Lyle when he visited their prison with Kim Kardashian to talk to inmates about prison reform.

Unlike Koch, Murphy said he never contacted the brothers. “I have no interest in talking to them,” he says. “It’s really good that Cooper has a relationship with them, and I obviously have a close relationship with Kim Kardashian, who has spoken to them. I love Kim, and I believe she is doing 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.”

Murphy also doesn’t feel the need to become an advocate for Erik and Lyle, as Koch said he wants to be. “I believe in justice, but I don’t believe in being part of that machine,” Murphy said. “That’s not my job. My job as an artist was to tell a perspective in a particular story. I feel like I did that, but I wish them the best.”