‘Monsters’ co-creator Ryan Murphy calls backlash from the Menendezes ‘predictable at best.’ It’s not the first time he’s upset families at the center of his true crime shows.

• Lyle Menendez and Erik Menendez killed their parents in 1989, but they have the support of family members.
• “Monsters” co-creator Ryan Murphy has defended his show about the brothers, amid backlash from the Menendezes.
• The first season of “Monster” was about Jeffrey Dahmer, and angered his victims’ families.

Once again, Netflix’s “Monsters” has angered the families at the center of the true crime show, but co-creator Ryan Murphy is standing firm.

“Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” is Netflix’s latest true crime sensation, dramatizing the high-profile 1990s trials of two brothers who killed their parents in 1989. It follows 2022’s “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” which told the story of the serial killer.

Lyle Menendez and Erik Menendez admitted to killing their parents during their first trial in 1993, arguing they acted in self-defense after years of abuse. They were given life sentences. Members of the extended Menendez family have supported the brothers’ claims that they were abused.

“Monsters” depicts multiple perspectives from the brothers’ trials, such as the theory that they were secret lovers, which is unproven.

Earlier this week, Erik Menendez’s wife, Tammi Menendez, shared a statement on behalf of the family on X, which read: “Our family has been victimized by this grotesque shockadrama. Murphy claims he spent years researching the case but in the end relied on debunked Dominick Dunne, the pro-prosecution hack, to justify his slander against us and never spoke to us.”

Dunne is a journalist who covered the trial and is depicted in “Monsters.”

The family didn’t specify the issues they had with the show.

Murphy defended “Monsters.”

Murphy, who co-created the series with writer Ian Brennan, has strongly defended “Monsters.” He told Variety on Thursday that the show was “the best thing that happened to the Menendez Brothers in 30 years” because it got the public talking about their case.

Murphy faced a similar backlash from the families of Dahmer’s victims, who claimed they were not contacted before the “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” premiered in September 2022.

The criticisms have raised broader questions about the ethics of true crime content, and whether victims and their families should compensated when their lives are adapted.

Still, “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” was nominated for 13 Emmys, and Netflix has already renewed the anthology for a third season.

Murphy called the Menendez family’s response “predictable.”

On Thursday, Murphy said: “The family’s response is predictable at best. I find it interesting because I would like specifics about what they think is shocking or not shocking. It’s not like we’re making any of this stuff up. It’s all been presented before.”

Murphy said he believed that the Menendez brothers should not spend their entire life in prison, but said he had no plans to advocate for their release.

“I believe in justice, but I don’t believe in being a part of that machine,” he said. “That’s not my job. My job as an artist was to tell a perspective in a particular story. I feel I’ve done that, but I wish them well.”

Murphy also said he had no plans to visit them in prison, despite his collaborator Kim Kardashian and Cooper Koch, who played Erik Menendez in “Monsters,” recently doing so.

“I have no interest in talking to them,” he said. “I don’t know what I would say to them. What would I ask them? I know what their perspective is.”

The families of Dahmer’s victims criticized “Monster.”

Dahmer, who killed 17 boys and men, died in 1994. Several family members of his victims claimed that Netflix and the co-creators didn’t contact them to warn them the show was coming or ask their permission to create it.

In September 2022, Rita Isbell, the sister of Errol Lindsey, who Dahmer killed in 1991, told Business Insider: “I feel like Netflix should’ve asked if we mind or how we felt about making it. They didn’t ask me anything. They just did it.”

Per The Hollywood Reporter, Murphy claimed in October 2022 that the team contacted 20 family members and friends of the victims during their fact-checking process, but no one replied.

Tatiana Banks, Lindsey’s daughter, told BI in October 2022 that the series opened old wounds.

“Honestly ever since that show’s been on I haven’t been able to sleep. I see Jeffrey Dahmer in my sleep,” she said.

Thomas M. Jacobson, who represented 11 of the victims’ families, told The Wrap in October 2022 that Murphy and Netflix should pay the families, claiming they exploited their trauma.

“Netflix receives the gain, the Dahmer-victim families the pain. This is not just, this is not fair, this is not right,” Jacobson said.