Lyle Menendez has praised Netflix’s “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” miniseries after it depicted both him and his brother Erik Menendez, who are currently serving life without parole for the 1989 murder of their parents.
“It really did actually move a lot of people to understand the childhood trauma that Erik and I suffered, and particularly the horrific stuff that Erik suffered,” Lyle Menendez said in a rare interview with TMZ’s Harvey Levin that aired on Fox on Monday.
Menendez ― who has been incarcerated for over 35 years ― revealed that the two were able to watch “quite a bit,” sometimes through video chat, of the series after its release last year.
The brothers have alleged that their parents ― José and Kitty Menendez ― sexually, physically and emotionally abused them for years leading up to the murders in the family’s Beverly Hills, California, mansion.
“I feel in the end a lot of people were educated about what can happen even in rich, in affluent homes and behind walls and behind hedges, you know, and manicured lawns,” said Lyle Menendez in the phone call interview from a California state prison.
“And so I think it opened a lot of people’s eyes, and that’s always a good thing.”
Kevork Djansezian / Associated Press
The Netflix miniseries, which scooped up three nods at this year’s Golden Globe Awards, was one of several shows and documentaries reexamining the Menendez brothers’ case that sparked a movement calling for their release from prison.
In October, then-Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón recommended that the brothers be resentenced to 50 years to life ― which would immediately make them eligible for parole.
The progressive Gascón would go on to lose a reelection bid to now-Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman, who has pushed for the brothers to remain in prison and is set to ask a judge to withdraw the resentencing request later this week.
The brothers are also scheduled to go before a California state parole board in June.
Lyle Menendez’s latest remarks, which were teased in February on TMZ’s “2 Angry Men” podcast, arrive after his brother (in a statement shared by his wife) slammed the show for its “dishonest portrayal” of the two and ripped the show’s co-creator Ryan Murphy for his “bad intent.”
The brothers’ family, in a later statement, also knocked the show for being a “phobic, gross, anachronistic, serial episodic nightmare” that’s “riddled with mistruths and outright falsehoods.”
Murphy defended the show back in October, telling The Hollywood Reporter that the brothers should be sending him “flowers” and argued that “many people have offered to help them” as a result.
Kim Kardashian is among those who have visited the brothers following the release of the show.
Film producer and criminal justice advocate Scott Budnick told HuffPost at the time that the brothers “understand the net positive” of the show despite its downsides.
