'Monsters' Star Cooper Koch Says he Got the Chance to Hug a Menendez Brother in Prison

"Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story" actor Cooper Koch got a chance to connect with the real Menendez brothers and told them he was going to portray them "as authentically as possible."

As reported by Variety, Koch said he had a really good conversation with brother Erik, who he plays in the series.

He reportedly told him "that I believe him and I did everything I could as an actor to advocate for him and portray him as authentically as possible, and that I think the show does a really good job of representing him."

They also talked about other things, too.

"I went to Calabasas High School, which is where he went when he first moved to California. My father graduated Beverly Hills High School the year before Erik got there. We have all of these weird parallels," said Koch.

However, Erik slammed the show in a statement posted by his wife on X. Koch said he got a chance to discuss those criticisms in a visit alongside Kim Kardashian.

"I told him that it makes sense that you would feel this way," Koch said. "I can't imagine what it would be like to have the worst part of your life, such a traumatic and tragic thing, be televised for millions of people to see in a dramatized Hollywood TV way. I just said, 'I understand, I get it, and I stand with you.'"

Koch apparently met Kardashian through his stylist, Jamie Mizrahi.

"They were having lunch together and I got a text from Jamie. It was a video of Kim being like, 'I love you in the show. You're so amazing,'" said Koch. "I was like this is so crazy but then they texted that they wanted to call me. Kim gets on the phone and starts asking me all these questions about Erik and about the brothers. Then she told me that she was going down there and asked me if I wanted to go with them. It all happened very quickly."

Koch said he believes Erik and his brother Lyle deserve a retrial because they committed a crime when it was "really hard for people to believe that male-on-male sexual abuse could occur, especially with father and son."

He added, "It was really hard for people to understand that the story that they were telling was true, and this theory that they killed their parents for money is just bonkers. But it was easier for people at the time to sort of swallow that story. But now, after 35 years, we have so much more evidence of child sexual abuse and male-on-male sexual abuse that I think they do deserve to be retried."