Kim Kardashian Is Calling for the Release of the Menendez Brothers

Did you ever think you’d read the words Kim Kardashian met with the Menendez brothers? Well, she did, and after speaking with them, Kardashian determined that Lyle and Erik “are not monsters.” Someone call Ryan Murphy.

The Menendez brothers’ case has reentered the zeitgeist in the past few weeks, thanks to Murphy’s new series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. In 1989, Lyle and Erik shot their parents, Kitty and Jose, to death inside their home, which led to a yearslong legal battle and endless tabloid coverage. Monsters, which is streaming now on Netflix, relays the events leading up to Kitty’s and Jose’s deaths, along with the dizzying aftermath.

At their first trial, Lyle and Erik alleged that Jose molested them. After enduring years of abuse, the boys said, they feared for their lives and killed their parents in self-defense. That hearing ended in a mistrial with a split jury. The brothers’ retrial happened in 1995, but the judge refused to allow evidence supporting the abuse allegations, including testimony from their family members. As a result, the siblings were sentenced to life in prison without parole. Erik and Lyle have spent more than three decades in prison and are now fifty-three and fifty-six years old, respectively.

Kardashian visited the prison where Lyle and Erik are held and then composed a letter to NBC News about her experience. “I have spent time with Lyle and Erik; they are not monsters,” she wrote. “They are kind, intelligent, and honest men. In prison, they both have exemplary disciplinary records.” According to Kardashian, the brothers have cared for incarcerated hospice patients, earned college degrees, and mentored others. Though she acknowledges that their crime is “not excusable,” Kardashian believes the public “should not deny who they are today in their 50s.”

October Prime Day Deals Worth Your MoneyNow that their case is regaining public interest, the brothers’ legal team is trying to get them out of prison. George Gascón, the Los Angeles district attorney, is reviewing new evidence that could result in a reduced sentence. The New York Times reports that Gascón doesn’t think Lyle and Erik should remain in prison for the rest of their lives. Kardashian agrees.

“The media turned the brothers into monsters and sensationalized eye candy,” she wrote. “Two arrogant, rich kids from Beverly Hills who killed their parents out of greed. There was no room for empathy, let alone sympathy.” Due to the circumstances of their second trial, Kardashian said, the Menendez brothers were “robbed of their childhoods by their parents” and “robbed of any chance of freedom by a criminal justice system eager to punish them without considering the context or understanding the ‘why,’ and without caring about whether the punishment fit the crime.”

Kardashian has spent the past six years working on prison reform. Though she’s not representing the Menendez brothers, her letter advocates for their release. “With their case back in the spotlight—and considering the revelation of a 1988 letter from Erik to his cousin describing the abuse—my hope is that Erik and Lyle Menendez’s life sentences are reconsidered.

“We owe it to those little boys who lost their childhoods,” she concluded, “who never had a chance to be heard, helped, or saved.”