Cooper Koch supported Erik Menéndez nearly a decade before playing him in Ryan Murphy‘s controversial Monsters series.
“I wrote to Erik a long time ago. I wrote to him like seven years ago,” Koch, 28, recently revealed during an appearance on SiriusXM’s Andy Cohen Live. “A long time ago. I think it got lost in the mail because he gets so much mail.”
While Koch didn’t originally hear back from Erik, 53, he got the opportunity to speak with him after Monsters was released. (Koch and Kim Kardashian visited Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in September and met with Erik and Lyle, 56.)
“It was just a long time coming. But then when I met them, it was just so normal like if I already knew them,” Koch recalled. “Because I do know them. And maybe it was weird for them because I know so much about them and they don’t know a whole lot about me. But it’s nice.”
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Koch even spoke with Lyle about his portrayer in Netflix’s Monsters.
“I talked to Lyle quite frequently and he did tell me he finally watched episode 5 [of Monsters] and it was very emotional for him and he just told me I did a great job,” he concluded. “He said I got Erik, so that was really rewarding.”
Season 2 of the hit Netflix series debuted earlier this month and chronicled Lyle (Nicholas Alexander Chavez) and Erik’s (Koch) 1990 arrest for the murder of their parents, José (Javier Bardem) and Kitty (Chloë Sevigny). Taking inspiration from footage of the trial and subsequent interviews, Monsters mirrored key moments from Lyle and Erik’s lives before and after they were sentenced to life without parole for shooting their mother and father.
Episodes 4 and 5 received critical and fan praise for introducing Erik and Lyle’s claims that they killed their parents in self-defense following years of alleged physical, emotional and sexual abuse. However, the show received backlash for several inaccuracies about the Menéndez brothers, including the insinuation that they were in a sexual relationship.
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“I believed we had moved beyond the lies and ruinous character portrayals of Lyle, creating a caricature of Lyle rooted in horrible and blatant lies rampant in the show,” read a statement from Erik that was shared on Lyle’s Facebook page. “I can only believe they were done so on purpose. It is with a heavy heart that I say, I believe Ryan Murphy cannot be this naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives so as to do this without bad intent.”
Erik made it clear he wasn’t thrilled to hear how he and Lyle were characterized. (The Menéndez brothers presumably don’t have access to streaming services at Richard J. Donovan Correctional in California. Their family members, however, have seemingly watched and been able to pass down information to Erik and Lyle about the contents of the scripted show.)
“It is sad for me to know that Netflix’s dishonest portrayal of the tragedies surrounding our crime have taken the painful truths several steps backward — back through time to an era when the prosecution built a narrative on a belief system that males were not sexually abused, and that males experienced rape trauma differently than women,” Erik’s statement continued. “Those awful lies have been disrupted and exposed by countless brave victims over the last two decades who have broken through their personal shame and bravely spoken out. So now Murphy shapes his horrible narrative through vile and appalling character portrayals of Lyle and of me and disheartening slander. Is the truth not enough?”
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Koch previously reacted to Erik’s criticism, telling Today in September, “To his statement, I understand how he feels and I get that it is so difficult to have your life — and not just your life — but the worst part of your life be televised in a dramatized, Hollywood version. I just get how difficult that would be and I stand with him. I understand it must be really hard.”
The actor has remained outspoken about his support for Erik and Lyle despite the potential backlash.
“I feel really calm. And I know where I stand. I know what my point of view is, and that point of view aligns with all of the people on TikTok who support them,” he told Vanity Fair earlier this month. “I know that I did everything that I could to support them and advocate for them in my performance, and portray them as authentically as possible. And if people are criticizing it, I know that I did everything I could.”
Monsters is currently streaming on Netflix.
