Menendez Brothers Speak Directly to TikTok Movement, Share Differing Views on Hope Amid Renewed Case Interest
When Court TV began re-airing the first trial of Erik and Lyle Menendez during the pandemic, an entirely new generation became aware of the 1990s murder case that was a media sensation years before they were born.
The Beverly Hills brothers were 18 and 21, respectively, when they shot and killed their parents, José and Kitty Menendez, in 1989. Their initial 1993 trial, where they were tried jointly and with separate juries, ended in a hung jury. The female jurors sided with their self-defense argument, that both boys had been sexually, physically and emotionally abused by their father since they were children and that, with their mother in the know, they feared for their lives; but the male jurors did not.
More from The Hollywood Reporter
“The first trial was a hung jury. It was not something that a jury of their peers was able to convict them on, and it was almost retried for a whole new generation in real time [in 2020], and people were very emotional about it,” Ross Dinerstein, producer of Netflix’s new The Menendez Brothers documentary, recently explained in a chat with The Hollywood Reporter about how Court TV’s revisiting of the case helped spawn a TikTok and social media movement calling for the release of Erik and Lyle.
“It really kickstarted interest again,” echoed his Campfire Studios partner on the doc, Rebecca Evans. “Today, people are looking at cases like this, cases of abuse, in a different way. So [our documentary] was an opportunity to tell their story, both for us and for them, in a different time when people are thinking about things differently.”
The producers said the incarcerated brothers — who are serving life in prison without parole after their second trial verdict and sentencing in 1996 (the judge barred the defense from including testimony about the abuse, and took manslaughter off the table; they were convicted of first-degree murder) — had gotten wind of the shift in cultural support, and that’s partly what motivated them to jointly speak out for the first time in decades for the Campfire Studios project.
The two-hour The Menendez Brothers documentary released on Netflix Monday and now, the three-episode companion podcast, Introducing The Menendez Brothers, features audio from Erik and Lyle opening up to director Alejandro Hartmann, via phone interviews that were conducted in 15-minute increments due to prison communication restraints from the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, where they were reunited in 2018.
The timeline around this push to “free the Menendi” has grown louder in recent weeks, following Netflix first releasing Ryan Murphy’s scripted series, Monsters: The Erik and Lyle Menendez Story, which quickly shot to No. 1 on the streamer (and now is No. 2 behind rom-com Nobody Wants This). In between the release of Monsters and The Menendez Brothers doc, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office announced the brothers’ habeas corpus petition, which they filed in 2023, was now under review and that they will make a decision on whether it warrants a resentencing. A hearing is set for Nov. 29. (Read more about the steps that led to the petition here.)
Evans, when chatting with THR, said they were aware of that update when they wrapped their documentary, which has been in the works for four years and in the edit stages over the last year. The petition, which could be the brothers’ last opportunity for a review since they are out of appeals, contains new evidence that includes a letter written by a young Erik that his attorneys say corroborates the allegations that he was sexually abused by his father. They filed their petition after another person came forward in 2023, Menudo band member Rosselló, with abuse allegations against their father.
When speaking to Hartmann in newly released conversations for the podcast, Erik and Lyle addressed the newfound hope they have from their supporters, but cautioned on two things. First, that the new generation of case followers not lose sight of the seriousness of their crime and second, that having hope for the brothers at this point in their lives, now in their 50s, can be a treacherous thing.
“I think the problem with TikTok is that you will find a black-and-white view of the story. Where they are like heroes, or they are like victims. The complexity is very hard to tell in 30 seconds, that’s the problem,” says Hartmann, acknowledging the mystery and skepticism that still exists around the case, given that the two victims are not here to tell their side, and setting up Erik and Lyle weighing in.
“I really appreciate the support of the people that have written me and are supporting me — by supporting me, [people who] believe that I shouldn’t spend the rest of my life in prison,” says Erik. “I’ve heard about a lot of the videos, I’m sure there are very serious TikTok videos, but then I also know there are ones that are not. I only get to see what’s on TV and the stories about them. I do worry, and I think it’s important, that the seriousness of my crime not be minimized or diminished.”
He continues, “This tragedy has been deep, and every member of my family has been impacted. And sometimes I think a lot of that pain and tragedy gets lost in translation in some of the TikTok videos. So I think that it is important that we remember that two people are no longer alive and families have been devastated by this tragedy, and that I am at the center of it. I am the one responsible. I don’t want that to be diminished or minimized in any way by people that support me and believe in me.”
Lyle says he feels “lifted by collective hope,” which is something he has felt from the new generations now following their case. “The followers who are younger that are on that sort of TikTok social media generation, they really have tremendous hope. I’m willing to float along on their hope and we’ll see what happens,” he says. “I’m not as hopeless as I was as a 21 year old, that’s for sure. Obviously, I feel more hope when society seems to be understanding these experiences and sex abuse better. So I do have hope and I also see a lot of people paroling who have life sentences, and still going home and paroling because they’ve rehabilitated, and I certainly feel like my brother and I have rehabilitated.”
But Erik shares his reservations around holding out hope. “I’ve been through so many disappointments when it comes to appeals of people rallying around trying to get signatures of the governor or attorneys believing that because the case law is evolving to understand the impact of childhood trauma, developmental trauma and how that now impacts us as adults, that laws are changing,” he says. “But I am so leery of getting my hopes up because the court system has not given us any evidence that they will overturn the case. And so while I am hopeful and pray, I am worried about getting my hopes up about any appeal. Every time I get hopeful, the letdown is even more intense and profound and personal.”
He adds, “There’s a saying that hope is a good thing, but hope can be torturous. And it has been torturous in my life.”
In the past month, which counts the release of both Netflix offerings, two Change.org petitions calling for a retrial based on new evidence and legal reforms gained more than 150,000 new signatures, bringing the total number up to nearly half a million. Kim Kardashian has visited the brothers in prison, and then advocated for their release in a viral op-ed, and Dinerstein and Evans said they plan to reconnect with the brothers ahead of the Nov. 29 hearing. “We believe this story is far from over and we would want to keep going,” Dinerstein told THR.
“I think that they probably deserve their time in court, at least with some of this new evidence,” Murphy also recently told THR. “And then it’s up for the courts to decide. I hope that they do get fairness. And that’s the way the courts are supposed to work, right?”
Best of The Hollywood Reporter
Sign up for THR's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.