‘Monsters’ actor Leslie Grossman says she agrees with Ryan Murphy that ‘the show will only benefit’ the Menendez brothers.
Ryan Murphy and Leslie Grossman have worked together for 25 years.
“Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” actor Leslie Grossman told B-17 that the true crime drama “will only benefit” the brothers, after the Menendez family criticized it.
The show, the second season of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan’s Emmy-winning “Monster” anthology, topped Netflix’s most–watched charts for two weeks after it premiered in September, and sparked new conversations about the brothers’ case and the ethics of true crime content.
The series dramatizes multiple perspectives on why Lyle Menendez and Erik Menendez killed their parents, José Menendez and Kitty Menendez, in 1989, which culminated in the pair being given life sentences in 1996.
However, Erik Menendez, and some family members and viewers have criticized its creators for scenes they claim are untruthful or harmful, such as allusions that the brothers had an incestuous relationship.
In September, Murphy responded to the criticism by telling Variety that the show was the “best thing that has happened to the Menendez brothers in 30 years” because it renewed interest in their case.
Grossman, who played Judalon Smyth a witness in the brothers’ trial in “Monsters,” told B-17 on Tuesday: “I am going to echo what Ryan Murphy said, where I think that the show will only benefit those brothers.
“Otherwise, it’s a case that nobody’s thinking about, nobody’s talking about, and there’s no public interest in.”
Judalon Smyth, and Leslie Grossman in “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.”
Grossman cited Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón’s recent press conference on the brothers’ case to suggest the show had made an impact.
The brothers’ attorney filed a petition in May 2023 to vacate their murder convictions, but Gascón addressed it publicly for the first time last week. He told the press conference that his office was reviewing the case for a possible resentencing or retrial.
Gascón said he had been receive lots of calls about the petition since “Monsters” premiered.
Acknowledging she isn’t a legal expert, Grossman said of the show: “I think it raised interesting questions, and I think those questions have activated the Los Angeles District Attorney, and we’ll see what happens.”
The LA District Attorney did not immediately respond to an out of hours request for comment from B-17.
Grossman added: “My daughter, who’s about to be 18, and her friends didn’t know about this case. They didn’t grow up knowing about this.
“So a whole new generation of people is aware of it, and that brings attention and eyeballs, and that can only help the brothers try to make their case.”
Lyle Menendez and Erik Menendez during their trial in 1994.
During a debate on Tuesday for the upcoming LA District Attorney election, Gascón said that his office was already reviewing the case before “Monsters” premiered and had a hearing scheduled in November for the petition.
He said that after “Monsters” was released “we immediately started to get bombarded with media requests and calls because the case came back again to the surface, and the decision was made that rather than answer one media request at a time that we would actually just come out and very clearly said where we are.”
It remains to be seen whether the renewed interest will change the brothers’ conviction or sentences. Laurie L. Levenson, a law professor from LA, previously told B-17 that the series would need to provide compelling new evidence to help the brothers in a court of law.
“I think judges, in general, are a bit suspicious of what’s on television. They draw a line between real facts and entertainment facts,” Levenson said.
