Kim Kardashian’s interest in criminal justice reform led her right into the path of Erik and Lyle Menéndez — despite the fact that the brothers are in conflict with Kardashian’s colleague and collaborator Ryan Murphy over his latest series, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.
Kardashian, 43, has had a passion for criminal justice reform for quite some time. She has taken the bar exam, collaborated with attorneys to free the wrongfully convicted, and advocated to both the Trump and Biden administrations for convicts in need of presidential pardons. The Skims mogul traveled to the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility with her mother, Kris Jenner, sister Kourtney Kardashian, and film producer Scott Budnick to speak to a group of inmates about several prison reform initiatives, according to Page Six. The group was also joined by actor Cooper Koch, who portrays Erik in Monsters.
Kim Kardashian (3rd L) joins Vice President Kamala Harris during a roundtable discussion on criminal justice reform in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on April 25, 2024 in Washington, DC. The meeting included four of the sixteen people who had been convicted of non-violent drug offenses in the past and received clemency from President Joe Biden.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The group reportedly discussed an initiative called Greenspace, “a reform strategy about beautifying prison yards to help inmates rehabilitate,” that the Menendez brothers have spearheaded while in prison.
In a statement released on X by his wife Tammi, Erik called Monsters a “vile and appalling” portrayal of himself, and said that Murphy “cannot be this naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives so as to do this without bad intent.” The Netflix series appears to imply an incestuous relationship between the brothers, who allegedly experienced traumatic sexual abuse at the hands of their father, Jose Menéndez. The allegations of the abuse were deemed inadmissible in their 1995 trial, which Erik said was due 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.” Menéndez said it was “demoralizing” to know that Murphy’s portrayal could “undermine decades of progress in shedding light on childhood trauma.”
Kardashian, who starred in Murphy’s American Horror Story: Delicate and has a TV development deal with American Horror Story studio 20th Television (formerly known as 20th Century Fox Television), was apparently undeterred by the brothers’ reaction to Murphy’s show, and still visited with a group of 40 inmates that reportedly included Lyle and Erik Menéndez.
