As the Menendez brothers await a review of new evidence related to their 1996 murder conviction, they have one particularly outspoken advocate in their corner: Rosie O’Donnell.

O’Donnell has become close to the Menendez brothers, advocating for them on social media and even visiting them in prison. Lyle Menendez was also a guest on her podcast ‘Onward’ last September.

On Oct. 16, O’Donnell is expected to speak at a news conference outside a Los Angeles courthouse along with the Menendez family and the brothers’ attorney.

While their personal relationship has developed in recent years, O’Donnell’s support of the brothers began decades ago when she defended them on “Larry King Live” in the 1990s, prompting Lyle Menendez to write her a letter.

Erik and Lyle Menendez were charged with the 1989 murders of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, and have been serving life sentences without the possibility of parole since their 1996 conviction.

While O’Donnell does not dispute that the brothers committed these crimes, she has spoken publicly about her sympathy for their claims that they were abused by their father for years.

‘I believe them. They were terribly abused by their parents. They did the unthinkable, which was done to them day in and day out,” she said in a TikTok video from June 2023. “And they paid the price.”

On October 3, the Los Angeles County district attorney said his office would investigate what he called new evidence alleging the brothers had been sexually abused by their father. A hearing is scheduled for November 26.

The review could lead to a possible reevaluation of the brothers’ sentences, which O’Donnell is hopeful about.

“I think they should be released,” she said in a May 2023 TikTok video.

Read on to learn more about Rosie O’Donnell’s connection to Erik and Lyle Menendez.

O’Donnell has long supported the Menendez brothers

O’Donnell’s connection to the Menendez brothers goes back decades. According to an interview O’Donnell gave to Variety earlier in October, she spoke about their case about three decades ago on “Larry King Live” and said she believed the brothers’ claims that they were sexually abused by their father, Jose Menendez .

Both Lyle and Erik Menendez have accused their father of abusing them. Lyle Menendez testified in his first trial that his father abused him between the ages of six and eight, according to the 2018 book “The Menendez Murders.” According to the book, Erik Menendez also testified that his father began sexually abusing him at the age of six.

O’Donnell said Lyle Menendez wrote her a letter in 1996 after they talked about their case on “Larry King Live.”

“It basically said, ‘I know you know. And I hope we can connect,'” O’Donnell said in a June 2023 TikTok video. She said she didn’t respond to his letter at the time because she was “scared” and “not ready to tackle the subject hit’.

In May 2023, she renewed her public support for the brothers after watching the Peacock documentary series “Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed.” (Peacock is part of TODAY’s parent company, NBCUniversal.)

In the series, Roy Roselló, a former member of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo, alleged that Jose Menendez, then the head of RCA Records, drugged and raped him.

Shortly after the series came out last year, Erik and Lyle Menendez filed a petition asking the court to reconsider their life sentences based on new evidence.

O’Donnell said in a May 2023 TikTok that watching the series reinforced her belief that the Menendez brothers’ murders should be seen in the context of their alleged childhood trauma.

“I always believed that no one would really kill their parents for fun… I just believed that. As human beings, we’re not wired like that,” she said.

O’Donnell visited the brothers in prison last year

O’Donnell revealed that she visited Erik and Lyle Menendez at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego last year.

“I saw Lyle and gave him a hug,” she told Variety. ‘Then Erik came to me, hugged me and whispered in my ear, ‘Thank you for loving my brother.’ It was very, very moving for me.”

She has an especially close bond with Lyle Menendez, whose wife, Rebecca Sneed, introduced them last year.

“We talk a lot,” O’Donnell told Variety of Lyle Menendez. “I told them I would do what I could with the dwindling fame I have to bring light to their story.”

In September 2023, Lyle Menendez appeared on the podcast ‘Onward with Rosie O’Donnell’, where he spoke to her by phone from prison.

He shared what inspired him to reach out to her in 1996 after seeing her defend him on “Larry King Live.”

“I wrote to you way back in the early 1990s… and I felt like you had a similar history to me, in some ways,” he said. “I could just feel it for some reason. Survivors are connected in this way.”

Today, O’Donnell said she is in regular contact with the brothers, and that she sent them a message of support when she learned of the new court hearing scheduled for November.

“As soon as the news broke, I texted them and said, ‘It’s really happening. Now put that smile on your face. Here we go,” she told Variety. “This is what they’ve been waiting for for decades, and it’s about time.”

O’Donnell believes the brothers could be released “sooner rather than later.”

O’Donnell said she is hopeful about the fate of the Menendez brothers, telling Variety in October that she believes they could be released from prison “sooner rather than later.”

“I don’t think they’re going to keep them waiting much longer,” she said.

She said she was encouraged by Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón’s announcement that his office will review what he says is new evidence that the brothers were sexually abused by their father. At the conference, he said prosecutors have discretion to determine whether prisoners can be resentenced after reviewing new evidence. Inmates could “walk out based on what the court decides,” suggesting the possibility that the Menendez brothers could be released.

In O’Donnell’s eyes, Lyle and Erik Menendez have paid enough for their crimes.

“These two boys who suffered for 20 years in their home and 30 years in prison have served enough time,” she said on “Cuomo” last year.