‘It’s demoralising’: Menendez brothers and Dahmer victims hit out at Monsters creators

Ryan Murphy definitely knows how to lay on the drama in both his seasons of Monsters, which cover the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer and Erik and Lyle Menendez, but reactions from the real victims have been terrible on a different level. Erik Menendez recently released a statement regarding the show and criticised Ryan’s “demoralising” depiction of himself, and it’s resurfaced all of the backlash the creators originally received during the Dahmer episodes released in 2022.

Erik’s statement

Erik Menendez’s wife shares statement from Erik in response to Ryan Murphy’s ‘Monsters’ series:

“I believe Ryan Murphy cannot be this naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives so as to do this without bad intent. […] How demoralizing to know that one man with power can… pic.twitter.com/SgdfMm129S

— Pop Base (@PopBase) September 20, 2024

In his statement, Erik branded the portrayals of him and Lyle as “vile and appalling” as well as “demoralising.” He called Ryan Murphy out for shaping “a horrible narrative” that has taken “painful truths several steps backward.”

Many users were quick to support Erik and Lyle in the comments. One wrote: “Ryan Murphy portraying them as monsters and then benefitting off of their trauma is so sickening.”

Another urged Ryan to “stop sensationalising other people’s traumatic stories,” and pressed that “these true crime cases aren’t for our entertainment, these are real life tragedies that impacted real life people.”

Dahmer’s victims also spoke out after the 2022 season of Monsters

Many of Dahmer’s victims and families impacted spoke out to criticise Ryan’s portrayal of the real traumatic events that occurred. Shirley Hughes, Tony Hughes’s mother, whose murder by Dahmer in 1991 was covered in the series, told TMZ that “sick people thrive on the fame” and said “it’s a shame that people can take our tragedy and make money.” She also criticised Evan Peters, admitting that while he put on a great performance, she wished he’d used his Golden Globes acceptance speech to acknowledge the victims and their families.

via Instagram

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Rita Isbell, the sister of 19 year-old victim Eric Perry, wrote a piece for Insider expressing how she wished some of the show’s profits had been donated to the children of the Jeffrey Dahmer victims, saying it’s “sad” the creators of the show are “just making money off of this tragedy. That’s just greed.”

Perry actually had a daughter who was born six months after his death. Tatiana Banks told Insider that the series re-opened all the pain from her past: “The chapter of my life was closed and they reopened it, basically.”

Ryan Murphy denies claims he didn’t contact those affected prior to the show

via Netflix

The main takeaway from the victims and families impacted was that they weren’t contacted prior to the show’s production or release. However, Ryan has denied claims that nobody from the Monsters team tried to reach the families. He even said during a Directors Guild of America event in October 2022 that his team had tried to get in touch with around 20 friends and relatives of the victims but “not a single person responded to us in that process.” Maybe that should have been your first hint Ryan?

It seems that both the Menendez brothers and Dahmer victims’ family and friends disapprove of Ryan Murphy’s embellished storytelling skills. All we can do is hope that the victims or those affected are okay with the portrayal of whatever crime the third instalment of Monsters will cover – but with this track record, it doesn’t seem likely.

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is available on Netflix now. For all the latest Netflix news, drops and memes like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• Cooper Koch ‘cares immensely’ about Menendez brothers and ‘stands with them’ amid Monsters backlash

• Jeffrey Dahmer’s dad has disturbing theory about his son, as Monsters hits Netflix again

• A side-by-side look at the Netflix Monsters cast and eerily similar real people they play