Erik Menendez’s wife, Tammi, posted a scathing takedown of Netflix’s “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” on behalf of the brothers’ aunt Joan VanderMolen and the rest of their extended family, Tammi explained in the caption. The family statement labels “Monsters” as “a phobic, gross, anachronistic, serial episodic nightmare that is not only full of falsehoods and outright falsehoods, but also ignores the most recent exculpatory revelations.”

“We are virtually the entire extended family of Erik and Lyle Menéndez,” the statement reads. “We are 24 strong and today we want the world to know that we support Erik and Lyle. We pray individually and collectively for their release after 35 years of captivity. We know them, love them and want them in our homes.”

The family statement said relatives of the Menendez brothers “fell victims of this grotesque shockadrama,” adding, “Murphy claims he spent years investigating the case but ultimately relied on debunked Dominick Dunne, the pro-prosecution hack , to justify his slander. against us and never spoke to us.”

Dominick Dunne was a reporter for Vanity Fair who covered the Menendez trial in the 1990s. He is played by Nathan Lane in “Monsters,” which dramatizes the 1989 murders of Jose and Kitty Menendez by their sons Lyle and Erik, and the subsequent trials that ended in their conviction in 1996. One of Dunne’s more controversial theories appears in “Monsters” and claims that Erik and Lyle had an incestuous relationship. One scene in the series shows the brothers showering together.

“The character assassination of Erik and Lyle, our cousins, under the guise of ‘storytelling’ is abhorrent,” the family’s statement read. “We know these men. We have grown up with them since they were boys. We love them and are close to them to this day. We also know what happened in their home and the unimaginably turbulent lives they lived through. Some of us were eyewitnesses to many atrocities that you should never witness.”

“It is sad that Ryan Murphy, Netflix and everyone else involved in this series do not understand the impact of years of physical, emotional and sexual abuse.” the statement ends. “Maybe ‘Monsters’ is all about Ryan Murphy, after all.”

Shortly after “Monsters” made its streaming debut on Netflix, Tammi posted a statement from Erik Menendez decrying the show and saying Murphy was “naive and inaccurate” in his portrayal of the brothers. Murphy responded by telling Entertainment Tonight that “it’s interesting that he made a statement without having seen the show.”

“What I find interesting that he doesn’t mention in his quote is that if you look at the show, I would say 60 to 65 percent of our show in the scripts and in the film form revolves around the abuse and what they allege. happened to them,” Murphy said. “And we do it very carefully and we give them their day in court and they talk about it openly.”

Cooper Koch, the actor who plays Erik in the Netflix series, visited the Menendez brothers in prison after the real Erik criticized the show. Koch said in an interview with Variety that he told Eric that “it makes sense that you feel this way.”

“I can’t imagine what it would be like to see the worst part of your life, something so traumatic and tragic, on television for millions of people to see on a dramatized Hollywood TV,” Koch said. “I just said, ‘I understand, I understand and I stand with you.'”

“Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” is now streaming on Netflix.