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Watch Netflix's new true-crime show “Monsters: The Story of Lyle and Erik Menendez” about two of the world's most notorious In 1990, teenagers Lyle and Eric Menendez (played by Nicholas Chavez and Cooper Koch, respectively, in the series) were arrested after shooting and killing their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez. The brothers claimed self-defense at trial because they had been physically and sexually abused by their parents throughout their childhood. The case dominated the headlines, becoming one of the most notorious murder trials in history and shocking the world with the secrets of a wealthy family.

Now that the case has been brought back into the limelight by “Monsters,” many are questioning the backstory of Jose and Kitty and what is fact or (already controversial) fiction in this series. To learn more about José and Kitty Menendez, read here.

According to a 1990 PEOPLE article, Jose Menendez (played by Javier Bardem in “Monsters”) emigrated from Cuba to the United States in 1960 at the age of 16 on the advice of his father. His father, also named Jose, “a former soccer star, remained in Cuba until his last investment property was seized by Fidel Castro,” the magazine said. The teenager holed up in Pennsylvania at the home of a family friend, and then went to Southern Illinois University in Carbondale on a swimming scholarship. However, he gave up swimming due to an “overcrowded practice schedule” and transferred to N.Y.C., where he graduated from Queens College with a degree in accounting.

During her sophomore year, José met senior communications major Kitty Anderson (played by Chloe Sevigny in the Netflix series) in a debate class. They began dating, and when José decided to move to New York, he proposed to her. José's father objected to the marriage because of his son's age, but José countered through letters that if he was old enough to be on his own at 16, he was old enough to marry at 19.

José and Kitty were married in 1963, and soon Kitty moved in with José. While José worked as a dishwasher while he was in college, Kitty quit teaching and stayed home to raise their sons Lyle and Eric full-time.

Mary Louise “Kitty” Andersen (played by Chloe Sevigny in the Netflix series) was born and raised in Oak Lawn, Illinois, and was a “former beauty queen” according to the Los Angeles Times. Despite growing up in a middle-class suburb of Chicago, Kitty had a difficult childhood; according to Biography.com, her father Charles was abusive to her mother Mae and the couple's children Biography.com . Kitty was still young when they divorced, and in the aftermath she suffered from depression and resentment toward her father.

Despite her hardships, Kitty had big dreams of becoming an actress. While attending Southern Illinois University (and after meeting José), she won the Miss Oak Lawn beauty pageant in 1962. Friends at the time also described Kitty as “glamorous, a bit mysterious,” and “a bit of a quiet rebel.”

After marrying José at age 21 and moving to N.Y.C., Kitty gave birth to Lyle in January 1968 and Eric in November 1970.

Menendez began his career in business as an accountant with Coopers and Lybrand, eventually becoming executive vice president in charge of the U.S. operations of Hertz Rental Car, then a subsidiary of RCA. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, in 1980 he was put in charge of RCA Records, eventually receiving a salary of $500,000 as COO, and helping to sign artists such as Duran Duran, Eurythmics, Jose Feliciano, and Menudo He was also the COO of the company.

The Menendez family moved to L.A. in 1986 after Jose took a job with the debt-ridden video distribution company International Video Entertainment. The executive had turned around the ailing business (later renamed Live Entertainment) and was widely known as a successful businessman at the time of the murders.

At Lyle and Eric's 1993 trial, Roger R. Smith, José's second-in-command at Live Entertainment, testified that Menendez was “the ultimate control freak,” according to the Los Angeles Times. According to Smith, José once told him that his business credo was, “I always thought it was much better to be feared than loved, Roger.” Smith admitted that he did not like the executive, but acknowledged that Menendez “gets things done” in the business world.

Several years after the murder, public figures outside the family made accusations of assault against José Menéndez. According to Rolling Stone magazine, in the 2023 Peacock documentary Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed, former Menudo member Roy Rossello, then an executive at RCA Records alleged that he was sexually assaulted by Menendez. In the document, Rossello claims that Menudo's then-manager Edgardo Diaz (long accused of sexually abusing the then-teenage boy band member) turned Rossello over to Menendez in order to secure the band's multi-million dollar recording contract

Hossein's alleged involvement with Menendez has been reported.

As Jose became increasingly successful, he and Kitty began to face marital problems. According to the Los Angeles Times, Kitty was not happy about the family's move from New Jersey to California, and anonymous friends said they would have been better off on the East Coast.

Vanity Fair magazine then reported that Kitty was “deeply unhappy” and “devastated” by José's apparent affair. According to the Los Angeles Times, during the 1993 trial, Kitty's former psychologist testified that Kitty was suicidal because of her eight-year affair with José and a New York woman. That doctor also described her as “drug and alcohol dependent, depressed, and obsessed with appearances.” Karen Lamb, a friend of Kitty's, corroborated Kitty's despair in an interview with Vanity Fair.

After the 1990 murders of their parents José and Kitty, Lyle and Eric Menendez were arrested and eventually charged with first-degree murder. The brothers each claimed in separate trials that they killed their parents in self-defense after suffering years of sexual abuse by José and, to a lesser extent, Kitty.

Some of the brothers' alleged (and portrayed in Monsters) actions were corroborated by acquaintances who testified at the 1993 trial. One of Eric's tennis coaches said that José dominated every aspect of the boys' lives, including “academics, socializing, and girls to hang out with.” Lyle's sixth grade history teacher called José “belligerent” and Kitty “lazy,” and claimed that other students at the school considered the couple “problem parents.” The brothers' first tennis coach, who taught them for five years, said he was fired after a confrontation with José, adding, “I couldn't stand that guy.

During the trial, Lyle and Eric separately accused José of sexually abusing them as children. Lyle testified that he was sexually abused by José from the ages of 6 to 8, while Eric claimed that his father sexually abused him from the ages of 6 to 18. According to the Los Angeles Times, Lyle claimed that Kitty washed his body and touched him “everywhere” until he was 13, and was “furious” when he stopped. He also claims that he “harassed” him with “increasingly bizarre sexual acts” throughout his adolescence.