Out actor Cooper Koch responds to ‘Monsters’ controversy, says he “stands with” Erik Menéndez

The massive popularity of Ryan Murphy and Netflix’s Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menéndez Story means that suddenly everybody’s weighing in on decades-old trials that caused a media frenzy and ended in a pretty decisive verdict: Guilty.

But, this time, it’s not the fact that the Menéndez Brothers murdered their own parents in 1989 that’s up for questioning—it’s whether or not Lyle and Erik had an incestuous relationship.

Since its homoerotic first teaser, Monsters‘ approach to this unsubstantiated rumor has been controversial, to say the least. Multiple scenes in the series depict varying levels of sexual intimacy between Lyle (played by Nicholas Alexander Chavez) and his younger brother Erik (Cooper Koch), from kissing to sensual dancing to handsy foreplay in the shower.

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While there is no verifiable proof that this was ever the nature of the brothers’ relationship, these moments are largely drawn from theories circulated by Vanity Fair journalist Dominick Dunne (played by Nathan Lane), who believed the Menéndezes killed their parents as a means of covering up their love affair.

The choice to include these imagined scenes—based on conjecture—alongside other moments adapted directly from public records and media footage certainly muddies the truth. It sure seems like Monsters wants us to take these rumored acts of incest at face value, as part of this story as it actually happened, and that’s precisely what’s upset so many viewers.

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But Murphy stands behind it, maintaining he had “an obligation” to present multiple “points of view” of the events, while acknowledging that doing so very much “can be controversial.”

Among the many dissenters, is the Menéndez brothers’ extended family who recently released a joint statement calling out the series as a “phobic, gross, anachronistic, serial episodic nightmare… Perhaps, after all, Monsters is all about Ryan Murphy.” They really didn’t hold back!

Notably, Netflix is planning to release a documentary called The Menéndez Brothers on October 7, which is technically unaffiliated with the Ryan Murphy series, but will provide a different lens on the story and will include the actual voices of Lyle and Erik, telling their side of things for the first time.

You can watch the trailer here:

Cooper Koch opens up about conversations with the real Erik Menéndez

Also speaking out is Erik Menéndez himself who—in a statement shared by his wife last Friday—criticized Monsters as “dishonest,” alleging that Murphy “cannot be this naive and inaccurate about the facts of our lives so as to do this without bad intent.”

A few days after that statement was released, none other than Kim Kardashian—a longtime prison reform advocate—went to visit the brothers at the correctional facility where they’re being held near San Diego, and she brought Monsters star Cooper Koch along with her.

In a new interview with Variety‘s Marc Malkin, the actor opens up about that visit and reveals it wasn’t the first time he had spoken to Erik, who he portrays in the series.

According to Koch, he had a phone conversation with the younger Menéndez the night before Monsters premiered on Netflix:

“I got to have a really good conversation with him and tell him that I believe him and I did everything I could as an actor to advocate for him and portray him as authentically as possible, and that I think the show does a really good job of representing him.”

But joining Kardashian on her visit allowed Koch to meet Menéndez face-to-face for the first time, and to talk through some of the criticisms he’s had of the series.

“I told him that it makes sense that you would feel this way,” Koch shares with Variety. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to have the worst part of your life, such a traumatic and tragic thing, be televised for millions of people to see in a dramatized Hollywood TV way. I just said, ‘I understand, I get it, and I stand with you.'”

The actor says he spent time with and embraced both Lyle and Erik during the visit, remarking that they’re both “such upstanding individuals” who have done great work while in prison. He remains sympathetic to their story, calling attention to the fact that “it was really hard for people to believe that male-on-male sexual abuse could occur” at the time of their trials, which likely impacted their verdict.

“I really do hope that they are able to get paroled and have an amazing rest of their lives,’ Koch shares.

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As for the pushback to certain elements of the series, the actors admits he’s not surprised:

“I knew that this was a very controversial story, and that people were going to be upset and affected by what they were seeing,” Koch says. “I think the goal of the show is to put all those perspectives together and let the audience be the jury. And at the end of the show, you just make your decision on what you believe. And I think it’s a really interesting way of telling the story and just storytelling in general.”

When asked in a separate interview about Monsters‘ homoeroticism, his co-star Chavez preferred to leave that question to the boss:

“It was something that we discussed quite a bit as part of this project, but ultimately this is a question that’s honestly best reserved for Ryan and the creators of the show.”

Regardless of the controversy, Monsters has no doubt been a major breakthrough moment for both of its young stars. Chavez can also currently be seen in another of Murphy’s series, the original mystery horror Grotesquerie, airing on FX and Hulu.

As for Koch, the out actor’s previous roles notably include queer horror films They/Them and Swallowed—the latter of which we had the opportunity to speak with him about in early 2023, which you can watch below:

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