Kim Kardashian is calling for the release of the Menendez brothers following the release of her friend and collaborator Ryan Murphy’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. Kardashian penned an op-ed for NBC News on October 3, in which she opined that the brothers should not be in prison for life. “I doubt anyone would claim to be the same person they were at 18,†she wrote. “I know I’m not!†In the piece, Kardashian runs down the brothers’ sexual abuse at the hands of their father, the unfairness of their second trial, and their good behavior in prison. “Had this crime been committed and trialed today, I believe the outcome would have been dramatically different,†she writes. Then she called for their life sentences to be “reconsidered.â€
But perhaps the most loaded part of Kardashian’s op-ed comes when she invokes the O.J. Simpson trial to contextualize the Menendez trial: “More than four months after the Menendez mistrials, O.J. Simpson was charged with the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman,†she writes. “Then, eight days after Simpson’s acquittal, opening arguments began in Erik and Lyle’s second trial.†Kardashian’s father, Robert Kardashian, defended Simpson during his trial, and while she doesn’t spell out the connection any further in the op-ed, Kardashian implies that the case was such an embarrassment for the L.A. district attorney’s office that it led to the Menendez brothers’ terrible second trial. If there’s one thing a Kardashian is gonna do, it’s embarrass the L.A. DA.