(Credits: Netflix)

The controversy surrounding Netflix’s newest true crime series, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, continues. Their family have now slammed the show, claiming it is “riddled with mistruths.”

This comes only days after the Menendez brothers themselves criticised the show. “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,” Erik Menendez said in a statement.

The show looks at the story of him and his brother Lyle as they now serve a life sentence, without the option of parole, for murdering their parents. However, the brothers claimed, and still say, that what they did was out of fear and self-defence following a lifetime of abuse at the hands of their father. 

Now, their extended family have also criticised the show. Erik Menendez’s wife Tammi posted a statement on behalf of their extended family, reading, “We are virtually the entire extended family of Erik and Lyle Menéndez,” the statement reads. “We are 24 strong and today we want the world to know we support Erik and Lyle. We individually and collectively pray for their release after being imprisoned for 35 years. We know them, love them, and want them home with us.”

They claim that Ryan Murphy, the show’s creator, didn’t do adequate research for the series and instead relied on slanderous sources. “Murphy claims he spent years researching the case but in the end relied on debunked Dominick Dunne, the pro-prosecution hack, to justify his slander against us and never spoke to us,” the statement continues.

Dunne was a Vanity Fair journalist at the time of the trial who played a part in the media storm surrounding the case. However, he shared theories on the case at the time, including a suggestion that the brothers were in an incestuous relationship. The TV show appears to lean into this theory in some scenes.

“The character assassination of Erik and Lyle, who are our nephews and cousins, under the guise of a ‘storytelling narrative” is repulsive,” the family’s statement continues. “We know these men. We grew up with them since they were boys. We love them and to this very day we are close to them. We also know what went on in their home and the unimaginably turbulent lives they have endured. Several of us were eyewitnesses to many atrocities one should never have to bear witness to.”

“It is sad that Ryan Murphy, Netflix, and all others involved in this series, do not have an understanding of the impact of years of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.” the statement concludes. “Perhaps, after all, ‘Monsters’ is all about Ryan Murphy.”

In response to the brothers and their family’s criticism of the show, Murphy said, “It’s interesting that he’s issued a statement without having seen the show.”

Furthermore, he told Entertainment Tonight, “The thing that I find interesting that he doesn’t mention in his quote is if you watch the show, I would say 60 to 65 per cent of our show in the scripts and in the film form centre around the abuse and what they claim happened to them.”

Murphy added, “And we do it very carefully and we give them their day in court and they talk openly about it.”