Kris Jenner Shares Past Connection with Erik and Lyle Menendez Before Murder Trial

During Thursday’s Season 6 premiere of The Kardashians, the family matriarch opened up about her connection with the brothers, who were convicted of murdering their parents in 1989.

After Kim Kardashian told her mom about Ryan Murphy’s series, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, Kris revealed that she actually knew Erik and Lyle, not long before the murders.

“Ryan Murphy told me that his new series — like how he did Dahmer — is now going to be on the Menendez brothers,” Kim said, while chatting with her mom and her sisters, Kourtney and Kendall.

“You know I knew those guys in the ’80s,” Kris told Kim, to which Kourtney asked, “You knew the parents?”

“No. I knew the kids because Erik used to come over and play tennis with your dad on the weekends,” Kris replied, referring to her late husband and Kim, Kourtney, Khloe, and Rob’s father, Robert Kardashian.

Kim, 44, then shared that she “remember[s]” that her father would discuss the Menendez brothers case.

“The trial, I think, happened when I was like 13, so there were big cases that I would love to talk to my dad about, and so this was one of them,” she recalled in a confessional. “Now being older and seeing it from a different lens, 35 years later and knowing what I know now about the system, I just have a whole different outlook on it.”

Around the time of Erik and Lyle’s second trial, Robert Kardashian was an attorney for OJ Simpson during his murder case.

On August 20, 1989, the Menendez brothers brutally murdered their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, with two 12-gauge shotguns. The brothers were both found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility for parole.

Erik and Lyle, now 54 and 57, respectively, never denied they murdered their parents. Their entire defense strategy hung on them trying to convince the jury why they killed them in cold blood. Their testimony, as well as testimony from many of their relatives, alleged years of physical and mental abuse from both parents, but mainly at the hands of their father.

The brothers claimed their father sexually molested them for years, something which they were prohibited from testifying about in their second trial after the first ended in a hung jury.

In October, after years of appeals and spending over 35 years behind bars, then-LA County District Attorney George Gascón officially requested Erik and Lyle be resentenced.

Kim reacted at the time, taking to social media. She thanked Gascón for revisiting their case “and righting a significant wrong,” before praising the brothers’ friends, family, supporters and the media — “especially on the heels of Ryan Murphy’s TV show” — for helping, in her mind, “expose the abuse and injustices in their case.”

“Society’s understanding of child abuse has evolved, and social media empowers us to question the systems in place,” she continued. “The case highlights the importance of challenging decisions and seeking truth, even when guilt is not in question.”

She concluded: “I believe in the justice system’s ability to evolve, and I am grateful for a society where we can challenge decisions and seek justice. Never stop questioning.”