Menendez family responds to 'disgusting' Netflix drama

The extended family of Erik and Lyle Menendez released a statement Thursday pledging their love and support to the imprisoned brothers and condemning Ryan Murphy's Netflix series “Monsters” as a “grotesque shock drama.”

Her aunt Joan VanderMolen, along with 23 other family members, shared this statement on social media about “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” and Murphy's portrayal of Erik and Lyle.

“We are virtually the entire extended family of Erik and Lyle Menendez. We are 24 members and today we want the world to know that we support Erik and Lyle. We pray individually and together for their release after 35 years in prison. We know them, love them and want them to be at home with us.

“Ryan Murphy's Monster: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez is a phobic, crude, anachronistic, episodic serial nightmare that is not only full of falsehoods and outright untruths, but also ignores recent exculpatory revelations. Our family has become a victim of this grotesque shock drama. Murphy claims he spent years researching the case, but in the end he relied on the exposed Dominick Dunne, the pro-prosecutor, to justify his smears against us and never spoke to us.

“The character assassination of Erik and Lyle, our nephews and cousins, under the guise of “storytelling” is disgusting. We know these men. We grew up with them since they were boys. We love them and are close to them to this day. We also know what went on in their home and the unimaginably turbulent life they went through. Some of us have witnessed numerous atrocities that should never be witnessed.

“It's sad that Ryan Murphy, Netflix and everyone else involved in this series have no understanding of the effects of years of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Maybe “Monsters” is all about Ryan Murphy after all.“

Erik has already denounced the series for its “ruinous character portrayals” of him and his brother.

In “Monsters,” which premiered Sept. 18, younger brother Erik is played by Cooper Koch, while Lyle, three years older, is played by Nicholas Chavez. Parents Jose and Kitty are portrayed by Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny, respectively.

For his part, Murphy defended his depiction of an incestuous relationship between Lyle and Erik Menendez in his reimagining of the siblings' life story, saying the show was committed to presenting “all viewpoints and theories” of the case.

“As storytellers, we had a duty to also try to bring their perspective based on our research, and we did,” Murphy said. “If you watch the show, it presents the viewpoints and theories of so many people who were involved in the case.”

“(Journalist) Dominick Dunne has written several articles about this theory. We represent his position, just as we represent the position of (Menendez brothers' attorney) Leslie Abramson,” Murphy said. “We had a duty to show all of this and we did.”