The Menendez Brothers and O.J. Simpson Had an Unlikely Friendship Behind Bars

There are some bizarre twists in Netflix’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, many of which are pulled from real life: the brothers’ spending spree in the days after brutally killing their parents José and Kitty; their decision to play Milli Vanilli at their parents’ memorial; the brothers’ therapist confiding to his mistress rather than the cops about Lyle and Erik’s murder confession—a choice that rippled soap-opera-like repercussions throughout the brothers’ first murder trial. But the penultimate episode of the Ryan Murphy Netflix drama, “Seismic Shifts,” ends with another humdinger of a truthful surprise: that Erik and Lyle befriended O.J. Simpson in prison.

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” class=”external-link external-link-embed__hed-link button” data-event-click='{“element”:”ExternalLink”,”outgoingURL”:”https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/the-wild-true-tale-behind-monsters-the-lyle-and-erik-menendez-story”}’ href=”https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/the-wild-true-tale-behind-monsters-the-lyle-and-erik-menendez-story” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>The Most Unbelievable True Details in Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez StoryArrow Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” class=”external-link external-link-embed__image-link” data-event-click='{“element”:”ExternalLink”,”outgoingURL”:”https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/the-wild-true-tale-behind-monsters-the-lyle-and-erik-menendez-story”}’ href=”https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/the-wild-true-tale-behind-monsters-the-lyle-and-erik-menendez-story” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>

In 1994, about five months after the Menendez brothers’ first trial ended with hung juries, Simpson was arrested for allegedly killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. (Simpson was acquitted of murder in October 1995, but in February 1997 he was found responsible for the murders in a civil proceeding.) Simpson was locked up at the LA County Men’s Central Jail, where the Menendez brothers were living, and temporarily put in a cell block right next to Erik.

The episode’s introduction of Simpson closely follows what Erik has said about his time in prison alongside “The Juice.” In a 2006 interview with Larry King, Erik remembered the hours before Simpson joined him behind bars. “I was watching the chase on television, that infamous chase. And they had had me clean out his cell a few days ahead of time…They knew he was coming to jail…before he even knew.” Erik told King that shortly after the chase ended, “he comes walking down the hall, shackled and chained with about 15 deputies. And he says, ‘Hi, Erik.’ And then we had a whole interaction for weeks and months.” Erik came to know Simpson as “an upbeat, charming person.”

Erik told Robert Rand more details about his interactions with Simpson, including how he offered the pro athlete a few tips on his first evening in jail, telling him to keep quiet around other inmates and deputies. Per Rand’s 2018 book The Menendez Murders:

By Saturday morning, the impact of his ex-wife’s death was consuming the despondent Simpson. “He wasn’t happy to be in jail like anyone else,” said Erik. “He wasn’t any worse than I was or Lyle was. He was real delusional, thinking that he was going to get out in three weeks.” […]

Erik Menendez wanted to help. It was difficult to have a conversation with the jail guards right outside their cells, so Erik wrote a lengthy letter to O.J. that he left in a shower stall down the hall. “I told him a lot of things. ‘This is his life,’ I said. ‘When you cry—remember those tears. Hold them because you’re crying for your children, you’re crying for everything you’re losing.’ I said, ‘Remember who’s doing it to you and fight—continue to fight.’ I told him, ‘You’ve got to start worry about your life, not your reputation.’”[…]

The only time Erik actually saw O.J. was on the way to the shower. “It was sad to see O.J. Simpson on the other side of that wall. I told him to be courageous. Every time he walked by my cell, he smiled and gave me a wink.”

Incredibly, this was not Erik’s first time “meeting” Simpson. Dominick Dunne described the boys’ origin story with “The Juice” in a 1995 feature for this magazine.

The late unlamented Jose Menendez, about whom a decent word was scarcely uttered during the six-month murder trial of the two sons who had shotgunned him and his wife, Kitty, to death, was once a top-ranking executive at Hertz car rental. At the time, O. J. Simpson was doing his extremely popular commercials for Hertz. The story goes that Lyle and Erik Menendez, then pre-teenagers, were fans of the football star, so one night Jose and Kitty invited O.J. to dinner with them and their sons, and the evening was a great success. The Menendez brothers and O. J. Simpson did not meet again until they were all in the celebrity section of the Los Angeles County Jail, all three charged with double murder.

In a 2017 interview with People, Lyle recalled, “O.J. Simpson came over to our house several times. I certainly never thought that we’d be later meeting in prison, facing murder charges. That’s for sure.” Lyle also told Rand that he advised Simpson to take a plea bargain: “I told him I thought the public would understand,” Lyle said, according to The Menendez Murders. “I expressed my concern that [lawyer] Robert Shapiro wouldn’t let him tell the truth. I said I knew it obviously wasn’t planned and that he had snapped in the heat of passion.” When Rand asked if Simpson gave the impression that he was guilty of the murders, Lyle told him, “Absolutely. He knew Erik and I and trusted us.”

Dominick Dunne’s Menendez Trial Courtroom Notebook” class=”external-link external-link-embed__hed-link button” data-event-click='{“element”:”ExternalLink”,”outgoingURL”:”https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/1993/10/dominick-dunnes-courtroom-notebook-the-menendez-murder-trial”}’ href=”https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/1993/10/dominick-dunnes-courtroom-notebook-the-menendez-murder-trial” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>From the Archive: Dominick Dunne’s Menendez Trial Courtroom NotebookArrow Dominick Dunne’s Menendez Trial Courtroom Notebook” class=”external-link external-link-embed__image-link” data-event-click='{“element”:”ExternalLink”,”outgoingURL”:”https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/1993/10/dominick-dunnes-courtroom-notebook-the-menendez-murder-trial”}’ href=”https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/1993/10/dominick-dunnes-courtroom-notebook-the-menendez-murder-trial” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>

Maybe the relationship is less strange than it sounds. All three men were high-profile, LA-based alleged double murderers, housed in the same jail, who were at one point represented by Robert Shapiro. (Shapiro worked with the Menendez brothers very briefly.) Their trials were covered sometimes side by side in newspaper pages. The same coroner worked both cases, and was accused of making autopsy mistakes in both. Lyle and Simpson even had the same hair guy—Don Kovakovich, responsible for Lyle’s $2,500 prison toupee and Simpson’s restorative treatments—who talked about both murder suspects’ manes on the Jenny Jones show.

But the Menendez-Simpson relationship changed as it became clear that Simpson was the bigger celebrity behind bars. Erik was eventually moved away from “The Juice,” who, according to Dunne, got special privileges like an exercise machine and a private room for visitors, whom he could speak to directly. Other prisoners, including the Menendez brothers, had to communicate by telephone to visitors sitting behind a glass partition. Erik told Rand that Simpson was given better meals and was allowed to keep his cell open throughout the day. “They were treating him like royalty,” Erik told the author. “Everyone was in awe of him. Everyone wanted to talk to him.”

Almost overnight, public interest shifted away from the Menendez brothers and toward Simpson. The brothers’ defense team was initially happy to cede attention. “I’m certainly glad we’re not [in the spotlight] anymore,” said Terri Towry, a public defender representing Lyle, to the Associated Press in 1995. “That kind of scrutiny of a criminal trial disrupts the process.” But Dunne pointed out that Simpson was a tough act to follow—his trial ended about a week before the Menendez brothers’ second trial began.

O.J. Simpson, whatever his private torments may be, puts on a front that is as audacious as his absolutely-100-percent-not-guilty reply to the guilty-or-not-guilty query. He enters the courtroom each time looking like a star. . .[He and his defense team are] aware that the camera is on them, and behave accordingly. By contrast, the Menendez brothers, their luster dimmed, schlepped into the courtroom in Van Nuys, looking like TV actors whose series had been canceled.

Erik has said that despite the relationship he and Simpson shared in jail, he feels that Simpson’s acquittal negatively impacted his and his brothers’ retrial—suggesting that LA County District Attorney Gil Garcetti needed a win in the wake of the Simpson verdict. “O.J.’s verdict had a very negative effect on our case,” Erik said in The Menendez Murders: Erik Tells All. “Because [Simpson’s acquittal] was so shocking, there was this sense that an extreme injustice had happened and now we’re gonna have to right it with every defendant that comes up. We were the next defendant.” At their second trial, Erik and Lyle were found guilty of murdering their parents and sentenced to life in prison without parole.