Viewers of Monsters: The Lyle & Erik Menendez Story are criticizing how Ryan Murphy portrayed the brothers’ relationship with each other. The show recounts what went on before and after the gruesome murder of their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez.
Erik and Lyle claimed they were sexually and emotionally abused by their father Jose which caused them to murder their parents. The brothers testified that their father had begun molesting them at a young age and that their mother had known about it.
Related Stories
In episode 2 of the Netflix series, Lyle (Nicholas Chavez) plants a kiss on his brother Erik’s (Cooper Koch) lips. The brothers are very open as they are usually touching and feeling each other, but many viewers thought it was too much for the narrative and strayed away from the actual problem of sexual abuse. “The Menendez brothers were victims of sexual abuse who finally retaliated against their abusers and this disgusting piece of trash has turned their story into an incestuous fanfic. Hell is not hot enough for Ryan Murphy,” one person wrote in a viral post on X. But was their incestuous factual?
Were the Menendez Brothers lovers in real life?
There’s no proof that the Menendez Brothers were lovers. During the trial, one juror theorized that the motive for their parents’ murder was because they were in love with each other. Robert Rand recalled in his book The Menendez Murders: The Shocking Untold Story of the Menendez Family and the Killings that Stunned the Nation that the jury had asked to read back “all testimony or allusions to Erik’s homosexuality.” However, the theory was thrown out and the trial ended in a hung jury.
Trial expert Robert Rand said that he doesn’t “believe that Erik and Lyle Menendez were ever lovers.” He told The Hollywood Reporter. “I think that’s a fantasy that was in the mind of Dominick Dunne [the reporter portrayed in the series by Nathan Lane]. 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. And so I certainly wouldn’t call that a sexual relationship of any sort. It’s a response to trauma.”
Is Erik Menendez Gay?
Erik Menendez’s sexuality largely played out in the first trial. Prosecutor Lester Kuriyama repeatedly tried to bring up the issue of Erik’s sexuality, but Judge Weissberg refused to allow it. During his closing argument, he argued to the jury that Jose had not forced Erik into homosexual acts, but was in fact furious that Erik was gay.
However, Erik told Barabra Walters in 1996 that he is not gay. “The prosecutor brought that up because I was sexually molested. He felt in his own thinking that I was sodomized by my father, I must have enjoyed it,” he told the reporter. “A lot of gay people feel connected to me.”
Erik Menendez is currently married to Tammi Ruth Saccoman. The two wed at Folsom State Prison in a prison waiting room. Meanwhile, Lyle was married Anna Erikkson from 1996 to 2001. He is currently married to Rebecca Sneed.