Watch: Ryan Murphy Responds to Erik Menendez's Shade of 'Monsters'

Erik Menendez – one of the notorious Menendez brothers, both of whom are serving life sentences for having killed their parents with shotguns in 1989 – came out swinging against Ryan Murphy's Netflix series "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story," which is based on the crime. Murphy responded with the assertion that Menendez was complaining about the show without having seen it, and declared that Erik and Lyle "get their moment in court, and then some" in the Netflix series.

UK newspaper The Independent relayed that Menendez posted a denunciation of the series on X (formerly Twitter) via the account of his wife, Tammi.

In the tweet, Menendez slammed the show for what he called a "caricature" of his brother, Lyle Menendez (played in the series by Nicholas Alexander Chavez), who is portrayed as the more callous of the two. Erik Menendez (played by out actor Cooper Koch), by contrast, is depicted as tormented by the crime.

Menendez declared that there were "horrible and blatant lies rampant in the show," and he accused the show of "tak[ing] the painful truths several steps backward-- back through time to an era where the prosecution built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused, and that males experienced rape trauma differently than women."

A key point of the brothers' defense was that they believed they were defending their lives after having endured years of sexual abuse.

"Those awful lies have been disputed and exposed by countless brave victims over the last two decades who have broken through their personal shame and bravely spoken out," Menendez's tweet added. "So now Murphy shapes his horrible narrative through vile and appalling character portrayals of Lyle and of me and disheartening slander."

Menendez's tweet declared that Murphy "cannot be this naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives so as to do this without bad intent."

Not so, Murphy responded in comments to E! News.

"Erik Menendez has spoken out about the show," Murphy said in a red carpet interview at a premiere event for yet another of his shows, "Grotesquerie."

"I think that's interesting," Murphy continued, "because I know he hasn't watched the show. I hope he does watch it. I think if he did watch it he would be incredibly proud of Cooper Koch, who plays him."

Murphy went on to say the show's depiction of what he called "a 35-year-old case" is intended to be "a 'Rashomon' approach, where we show many, many, many perspectives.... In every episode you are given a new theory based on people who were either involved or who covered the case."

Murphy went on to note that the show has drawn criticism for what some viewers have taken to be a portrayal of the brothers that hints at them "having an incestuous relationship. There are people who say that never happened; there were people who said it did happen."

Murphy added, "I think that people were confused about what we were trying to do," before saying that he wanted the show to "have you do two things: Make up your own mind about who's innocent, who's guilty, and who's the monster; and also, have a conversation about something that's never talked about in our culture, which is male sexual abuse – which we do, responsibly."

"If you look at that show," Murphy added, "60 to 65 percent of that show centers around Erik and Lyle Menendez talking about their abuse, talking about their victimization, talking about what it emotionally put them through. Those two boys on our show get their moment in court, and then some."

Watch Ryan Murphy's comments to E! News below.