(Credits: Netflix)

Ryan Murphy and his hit shows are no strangers to controversy, and his latest Netflix drama, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, has come under fire not from viewers, but from one of the subjects itself, convicted killer, Erik Menéndez.

In 1996, Erik and his brother Joseph Lyle, who goes by Lyle, were convicted of murdering their parents, José and Mary Louise ‘Kitty’ in 1989. They suffered brutal deaths, with the former shot six times, including a fatal shot to the back of the head, and the latter ten times, with her killed by a shot to the cheek. The case became a national sensation in America when Court TV broadcast it in 1993, and it remains a polarising one.

The brothers maintained that they had killed their parents out of fear for their lives after a lifetime of abuse at the hands of their parents, and particularly the sexual abuse José had subjected them to. Their defence also described their mother as an enabling and mentally unstable alcoholic and drug addict, who encouraged José’s behaviour and was also violent towards the brothers.

On the other hand, the prosecution argued that the killings were undertaken for financial gain, as the brothers spent lavishly in the months after. Both brothers were ultimately convicted on two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Murphy’s second season of his anthology, Monster, which stars Javier Bardem as José and Chloë Sevigny as Kitty, withNicholas Alexander Chavez playing Lyle and Cooper Koch playing Erik, has now come under fire from Erik himself. In a substantial statement posted on his wife Tammi’s X’s account, he’s called Murphy’s show “naive” and “innacurate”. He also described the brothers’ depictions as “ruinous character portrayals” and discussed their trauma from sexual abuse.

The statement opened: “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.”

“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,” it continued. “Those awful lies have been disputed and exposed by countless brave victims over the last two decades who have broken through their personal shame and bravely spoken out.”

“Is the truth not enough? Let the truth stand as the truth. How demoralizing to know that one man with power can undermine decades of progress in shedding light on childhood trauma. Violence is never an answer, never a solution, and is always tragic,” he wrote later.

Both brothers are currently incarcerated at the Richard J. Donovon Correctional Facility near San Diego. Murphy has yet to comment.