‘Dahmer’ Creator Ryan Murphy Claims Victims’ Families Never Returned His Calls
"Not a single person responded to us."
Ryan Murphy has finally broken his silence on the backlash he has received for his controversial new series Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and the response is about as questionable as the show itself.
Following its release on Netflix, friends and family of Dahmer’s victims have been quick to criticise Murphy and the streaming giant for being insensitive and effectively forcing loved ones to re-live the trauma they endured.
While Netflix didn’t legally need to consult the victims’ families while producing the show on account of the crimes being part of the public record Murphy has claimed in a new interview that he did try — multiple times.
“We — over the course of the three, three and a half years when we were really writing it, working on it — we reached out to 20, around 20, of the victims’ families and friends trying to get input, trying to talk to people,” said Murphy, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“And not a single person responded to us in that process. So we relied very, very heavily on our incredible group of researchers who … I don’t even know how they found a lot of this stuff. But it was just like a night and day effort to us trying to uncover the truth of these people.”
Murphy didn’t specify which family members and friends were allegedly contacted, but one family member has already refuted the claim on social media.
So when they say they’re doing this “with respect to the victims” or “honoring the dignity of the families”, no one contacts them. My cousins wake up every few months at this point with a bunch of calls and messages and they know there’s another Dahmer show. It’s cruel.
— eric perry. (@ericthulhu) September 23, 2022
It remains unclear how Murphy, and the team at Netflix, thought it was a good idea to proceed with the project after 20 different people refused to reply to their requests for comment. Personally, I would take this as a sign that perhaps the family members aren’t interested in re-living their trauma, but that’s just me.
Jeffrey Dahmer murdered 17 men between 1978 and 1991. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1992, and was ultimately beaten to death by another inmate at age 34 after just two years in prison.