Ryan Murphy has defended his latest Netflix crime drama “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.” Here’s a timeline of the controversy.

September 11, 2024: Tammi Menendez calls “Monsters” a “complete train wreck.”

Erik Menendez’s wife Tammi Menendez in 1999.

Chris Morton / Online USA, Inc.

A week before “Monsters” arrived on Netflix, Erik Menendez’s wife Tammi Menendez wrote on X that the series “missed the mark.” It was unclear if he saw the show before the release or if he responded to the trailer.

She described it as a “train wreck” and “exaggerated and untrue”.

September 19, 2024: Viewers complain that the show suggests the Menendez brothers had an incestuous relationship.

Cooper Koch as Erik Menendez and Nicholas Chavez as Lyle Menendez.

Netflix

On September 19, the day “Monsters” premiered, viewers shared their frustrations with the show, particularly episode seven.

In the series, journalist Dominick Dunne (Nathan Lane) suggests that Kitty Menendez discovered that Lyle Menendez and Erik Menendez had an incestuous relationship by walking into them showering together, and the brothers killed their parents to hide the secret.

Some subscribers called Murphy out on the story because there is no substantial evidence that it is true.

September 19, 2024: A Facebook account that appears to be run by the family of Lyle Menendez calls “monsters” “pure evil.”

Lyle Menendez in court.

Kim Kulish/Sygma/Getty Images

On the day of release, a Facebook account that appeared to be run by Lyle Menendez’s family also criticized the incest scenes.

The person who handles the account wrote: “They had a lot of material to draw from, and this is what they chose to do????? It’s laughable. It’s pathetic. And it is re-victimizing. It is imaginary. It is fiction, and to put into the world the absurd idea that the brothers were lovers is the height of pure evil.”

In another post later that day, the account claimed that Lyle Menendez had not seen the series.

“Just so everyone is clear, as the pinned post says, this is not Lyle’s post. Thankfully, Lyle doesn’t have Netflix in prison and can’t watch this abject garbage,” they said.

Business Insider reached out to the account to verify if it is run by a relative of Lyle Menendez.

September 20, 2024: Erik Menendez calls the portrayal of him and his brother “vile and appalling.”

Erik Menendez in Los Angeles in 1994.

Ted Soqui/Sygma/Getty Images

Tammi Menendez shared a statement from her husband, in which he described the show’s portrayal of his brother as a “caricature.”

He also criticized Murphy and the way he “shapes his horrible narrative through lurid portrayals of Lyle’s characters and mine and chilling slander”.

It is unclear whether Erik Menendez watched the show.

September 23, 2024: Ryan Murphy defends “Monsters.”

Ryan Murphy at the premiere of “Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story.”

Steve Granitz/Film Magic/Getty Images

Commenting on Erik Menendez’s statement, Murphy told Entertainment Tonight on September 23, “I think it’s interesting that he issued a statement without having seen the show. It’s very, very hard – if it’s your life – to see your life on screen.

He added: “If you look at the show, I’d say 60 to 65 percent of the scripts and the shape of the film is centered around the abuse and what they claim happened to them. And we do it very carefully and give them their day. in court and I talk openly about it.

Referring to a 1950s Japanese crime thriller that tells the story of a crime from different perspectives, Murphy added: “It’s kind of a ‘Rashomon’ approach, with four people involved. Two of them are dead. But the parents. We had an obligation as storytellers to try and put their perspective on our research, which we did.”

When asked about the romantic relationship between the brothers on the show, Murphy said, “If you watch the show, what the show does is present the viewpoints and theories of so many people who were involved in the case.”

September 23, 2024: Netflix announces a new documentary called “The Menendez Brothers.”

Lyle and Erik Menendez during their 1994 trial.

Ted Soqui/Sygma via Getty Images

On September 23rd, Netflix announced that a new documentary in which the brothers tell their story will arrive on the streamer on October 7th.

In the first trailer for “The Menendez Brothers,” the pair say “not that much has been said” about their lives, the Menendez family and the murders.

September 25, 2024: Cooper Koch says he doesn’t believe the incest theory.

Erik Menendez and Cooper Koch in “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.”

48 Hours/YouTube/Netflix

Cooper Koch, who plays Erik Menendez on “Monsters,” told Variety on Sept. 25 that he “absolutely does not” think the brothers had a secret physical relationship. “I don’t think that’s true,” he said.

He added: “And I don’t think the show set out to make or break that truth. I think that was just a theory that one person had that was brought into the show because that person was a character in the show. .

“I stand with Eric and everything he says in his testimony I believe is his truth and I believe it.”

September 26, 2024: The extended Menendez family calls the show “disgusting.”

Lyle and Eric Menendez in 1989, the year they killed their parents.

Ronald L. Soble / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Tammi Menendez posted a statement from Joan VanderMolen, the brothers’ aunt, and the rest of the Menendez family on September 26.

In it, the family called the Netflix series “repulsive” and accused Murphy of committing a “character assassination” of the siblings.

The family ended the statement by accusing Murphy and Netflix of failing to understand the ramifications of the abuse and said, “Maybe, after all, ‘Monsters’ is all about Ryan Murphy.”