Cooper Koch, who plays Erik Menendez in Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, has defended the true-crime drama’s controversial, homoerotic portrayal of the Menendez brothers – including the incestuous shower scene.

As soon as Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story debuted on Netflix, people began criticising the TV show for taking several liberties with the truth. Despite the fact that the real Erik Menendez has explicitly denied being gay in interviews, Monsters depicts him as queer. The series also plays into incest accusations surrounding Lyle and Erik.

Now, Cooper Koch has opened up about the divisive incest scenes and why he thinks it was right to include them.

Were the Menendez brothers lovers?

Throughout Monsters, there is a homoerotic tension between Erik and Lyle. They’re very tactile, often naked together and even kiss on the lips in one scene. On top of that, there is a scene in which writer Dominick Dunne suggests that they were incestuous and, in an imagined scenario, we see Kitty catch Erik and Lyle showering intimately together.

Speaking to Variety about the backlash, Cooper said: “I knew that this was a very controversial story, and that people were going to be upset and affected by what they were seeing. I think though, you have to put it into context of the situation, and that we’re sort of painting a picture based on what somebody else’s perspective was.”

He added: “It’s not necessarily the truth of what happened. That’s just what Dominick Dunne thinks and there I think are other places in the story where it’s sort of planted to give people all of these different perspectives.”

Cooper continued: ” 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.”

As for his personal opinion, Cooper said: “I do not think that’s true. And I don’t think it was intended by the show to make or break that truth. I think that was just a theory that one person had.”

In real life, district attorney Lester Kuriyama suggested that Lyle and Erik committed parricide because they were secretly together but there was never any evidence to prove this.

Was Erik Menendez gay? Were the Menendez brothers lovers? Picture: Netflix

Was Erik Menendez gay?

Elsewhere, Monsters implies that Erik Menendez was queer and struggling with his sexuality. Erik flirts with one of the other inmates while in prison and they even touch themselves while looking at each other in the showers together. When the inmate asks Erik if he’s gay, he says that he’s not but that he likes the inmate.

Erik also tells his lawyer Leslie Abramson that he had a consensual sexual relationship with another boy when he was a teenager but has conflicted feelings about his sexuality based on his father’s own abuse.

These scenes are fictionalised. In a 1996 interview, Barbara Walters asked Erik if he was gay and Erik said: “No, the prosecutor brought that up because I was sexually molested and he felt that if I was sodomised by my father that I must have enjoyed it and therefore I must be gay.”

He added: “It was upsetting to hear. I’m not gay but a lot of gay people write and feel connected to me.”