In a surprising visit to the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility near San Diego, Kim Kardashian met with Erik and Lyle Menéndez, notorious for their high-profile murder trial in the 1990s.
The meeting, reported by TMZ on Saturday, comes shortly after Erik publicly criticized Kardashian’s collaborator Ryan Murphy and his Netflix series, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, which dramatizes their lives.
Accompanied by her sister Khloe Kardashian and mother Kris Jenner, Kim engaged with a group of around 40 inmates to discuss her ongoing commitment to criminal justice reform, per the outlet’s source.
Notably, they were joined by actor Cooper Koch, who portrays Erik in the series.
A significant topic of discussion was Greenspace, an initiative led by Lyle that focuses on beautifying prison yards as a means to aid rehabilitation, according to the insider.
Erik and Lyle were convicted of brutally murdering their parents in their home in Beverly Hills in 1989, and both brothers are currently serving life in prison sentences.
The news of the meeting came after it was revealed Erik shared his thoughts on the miniseries on Lyle’s Facebook page, calling out Murphy for what he called its ‘horrible,’ ‘blatant lies’ in the series.
‘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. I can only believe they were done so on purpose,’ Erik’s lengthy post began.
‘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 is portrayed in the series by Koch, while Lyle is played in the series by Nicholas Alexander Chavez.
Javier Bardem plays their father José Menendez and Chloë Sevigny plays their mother Kitty.
He continued: ‘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.’
Monsters premiered on Netflix on September 19 and depicts the brothers as spoiled brats who went on a spending spree after they gunned down their parents.
Later in the series, the sexual abuse of the brothers from both of their parents is shown, which alludes to Lyle and Erik’s real motives for the killings.
‘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,’ Erik pointed out.
‘So now Murphy shapes his horrible narrative through vile and appalling character portrayals of Lyle and of me and disheartening slander,’ he wrote.
The criticism comes after Murphy first teamed up with Kim for American Horror Story: Delicate, which premiered on September 20, 2023.
In this groundbreaking series, Kardashian took on her first major scripted role as Siobhan Walsh, a character facing the surreal and disquieting challenges of pregnancy.
Following her performance in AHS, Kim signed on for Murphy’s upcoming project, described as a high-end, glossy and sexy adult procedural called All’s Fair.
The reality star is set to portray Los Angeles’ top divorce lawyer and the head of an all-female law firm.
For Kardashian, stepping into the role of a lawyer feels particularly fitting, as she is actively pursuing a legal career in real life—having passed the baby bar exam last year, she is now preparing for the full bar exam.
Kim’s advocacy for criminal justice reform began in earnest in 2017 when she championed the cause of Alice Johnson, a woman serving a life sentence for a non-violent drug trafficking offense.
Initially, Kardashian reached out to Ivanka Trump to bring attention to Johnson’s case.
This advocacy culminated in a meeting with former President Donald Trump, where she passionately campaigned for Johnson’s clemency.
Kardashian’s efforts paid off in June 2018 when Trump granted Johnson a pardon, leading to her release from prison after more than 20 years.
Inspired by this success, Kardashian has since expanded her advocacy to include other individuals facing similar injustices, such as Kevin Cooper, who has been on death row for over three decades, and Julius Jones, a man wrongfully convicted of murder.
Through her ongoing efforts, Kardashian has established herself as a prominent voice in the movement for criminal justice reform, using her platform to raise awareness and effect change for those trapped in a flawed system.
In May 2022, during the inaugural season of her family’s Hulu show The Kardashians, Kim captured the moment she discovered she had passed the “baby bar” law exam.
Sitting in her car with her friend and publicist Tracy Romulus, Kardashian logged into her online account to check the results of her third attempt at the challenging test.
The emotional revelation marked a significant milestone in her journey to becoming a lawyer, reflecting her determination and commitment to her legal education.
‘Everyone told me this was the impossible way and there was no way I would ever pass this test, and I did,’ she later said in an interview confessional.-