Convicted assassin Erik Menendez could have had harsh condemnation of Ryan Murphy’s controversial Netflix sequence, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, over its multifaceted portrayal of his and brother Lyle Menendez’s homicide of their mother and father in 1989 and the legal trials that adopted. However the California inmate, who’s behind bars for all times, had excessive reward for the actor who portrays him when the 2 met face-to-face throughout a jail go to final week brokered by Kim Kardashian.
Cooper Koch, the breakout star of the hit sequence, informed The Hollywood Reporter that when he arrived on the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility on a go to to focus on jail reform and the Menendez brothers’ huge mural venture on the San Diego County advanced, he and the person he portrays — with newfound sympathy in a lauded efficiency — clocked one another virtually instantly.
“We walked in the [prison’s] gymnasium, and the first person that I saw was Erik. And we locked eyes, and he smiled and I smiled, and we hugged each other. And it was really, really powerful and emotional. It was an amazing experience,” Koch mentioned, then referring to Erik and Lyle Menendez, who had been each on the occasion. “And he — both of them were so kind, and they’re so normal.”
The journey was a last-minute, whirlwind affair for Koch, who obtained an out-of-the-blue FaceTime name from Kardashian simply days earlier than the journey because the sequence premiered on Netflix. The truth star has been an advocate for incarcerated people since 2018 when a Mic.com video of then-inmate Alice Johnson went viral and impressed the fact TV megastar to advocate for and ultimately assist free the grandmother from a life sentence she was handed for drug trafficking. Kardashian invited Koch, alongside together with her and others, in a deliberate journey to R.J. Donovan Correctional Facility to meet with the Menendez brothers, who’ve been engaged on a 1,000-foot lengthy mural scaling the concrete partitions of a bit of the jail, which is dubbed Echo Yard.
Koch informed THR that he and Erik Menendez had been in a position to spend some one-on-one time talking with one another. At some extent throughout their face-to-face chat, the person who he has labored for over a 12 months to redefine as a sympathetic sufferer of sexual, bodily and emotional abuse by the hands of his mother and father praised him for his work — regardless that he hasn’t seen the sequence but.
“One of the first things Erik said was, ‘I know you’re doing great. You did a great job in episode five [“The Hurt Man”] and I’m going to watch it. I simply, you realize, it’s tough,’” Koch recalled his saying of the sequence’ midway-point bottle episode, the place Koch’s Erik particulars his father’s alleged sexual and emotional abuse. “And I spoke to him about it, which was insane for me.”
Koch mentioned the 2 then spoke in regards to the backlash the present has obtained for sure inventive selections made in its script that some see as a deeply problematic revision of historical past. The weekend after Monsters debuted on Netflix, Erik Menendez launched an announcement calling the portrayal of him and his brother “naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives so as to do this without bad intent.”
Days later, Murphy shot again, defending the sequence and the a number of views and theories introduced on the brothers’ case, together with the insinuations of incest between the 2 which are included and meant to symbolize reporter Dominick Dunne’s suggestion about their relationship. This week, the confrontation continued when two dozen members of the Menendez brothers’ prolonged household launched one other assertion slamming the sequence as “character assassination” and arguing that its “mistruths” have victimized the whole Menendez household. Murphy then doubled down, saying that his present is the very best factor to occur to the brothers “in 30 years,” as their case is now a sizzling matter.
“I spoke to him about his statement,” Koch informed THR. “And, you know, I just told him that I understand where he’s coming from. I feel for him. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have the worst parts of your life be portrayed on television in this fictionalized, dramatized way, you know, and so I just told him that I stand with him. I understand how that must feel and that it’s really difficult.”
The Menendez brothers exhausted all appeals through the years and resolved to spend their lives in jail with out the potential of parole. However not too long ago, their father was accused of sexual abuse by a former member of the Nineteen Eighties boy band group Menudo and creator Robert Rand got here throughout a bit of exhausting proof displaying José Menendez possible was abusing his sons. Now, by means of a habeas corpus petition, the Menendez brothers may obtain a brand new sentence for his or her 1989 crime which may probably be lowered to time served and free them after 30 years.
Koch mentioned that he very a lot hopes this turns into a actuality for the brothers.
“They’ve done so much amazing work in prison,” he says. “Erik teaches meditation. He teaches speech classes. They’re both incredible people. I think back then, people just didn’t believe that sexual abuse between males was something that you could believe and the easier pill to swallow was that they killed their parents for money. But now, after so much time, I think people are more open to understanding that something like that did happen.”
Koch added that the brothers even discovered an advocate in an surprising particular person after their years as mannequin inmates on the R,J. Donovan Correctional Facility.
“In fact, the warden told me himself that he feels like he’d be happy to have them as his neighbors and that he would be comfortable letting them watch his children,” Koch informed THR. “I think that says a lot!”
Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is now streaming on Netflix.