Meet Cooper Koch, star of controversial Netflix show Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story – the actor has a twin brother, and met the infamous murderer he plays thanks to Kim Kardashian

Oct 16 , 2024

Who is Cooper Koch, who stars in the Netflix show Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story? Photo: @eolor/Instagram

Cooper Koch has struggled in the past as an out gay actor, but persisted to win parts starring alongside Kevin Bacon and now Javier Bardem – but the question the internet is asking is, is he single?

Ryan Murphy’s latest show, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, has been generating a lot of controversy for its portrayal of the brothers who famously murdered their parents in 1989. Not only have some taken issue with the show’s depiction of a homoerotic, incestuous relationship between the two, but the Menendez family have called the Netflix series a “grotesque shockadrama” and a “character assassination”. The brothers – now aged 53 and 56 – remain behind bars.

Lyle and Erik Menendez are portrayed in a new Netflix show, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. Photo: @chavezacccess/Instagram

But whatever you think of the show, it’s hard to deny that a new star has been born in its creation – and that’s Cooper Koch. He plays Erik Menendez, and has talked openly about his reading of the situation, and the fact that the brothers maintain they were sexually and physically abused for years by their domineering father.

The cast of Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. Photo: @dailynicholasalexanderc/Instagram

“It’s just such a tragedy all around … and I think it still goes on. These people are still in prison, so yeah, it’s just horrendous and it affects you. It’s deep,” he told Access Hollywood.

So what else do we need to know about the breakout star of the piece, Cooper Koch?

Cooper Koch is no stranger to dark subject matter

Cooper Koch has tackled challenging films in the past, such as horror flicks and slashers. Photo: @boysllbboys/Instagram

Koch, 28, says he started doing community theatre when he was just five years old, per Netflix, and loved performing in musicals so much that when it came time to decide what to do as a profession, acting “just made sense”. He scored his first decent role in Bret Easton Ellis’ drama Less Than Zero.

However, since then, his two big projects have been about as far from musicals as you can get: he’s starred in body horror Swallowed (2022) and the Kevin Bacon slasher film They/Them (2022).

He did odd jobs – including modelling – while coming up

Cooper Koch’s also worked as a yoga teacher. Photo: @agentsergiogarcia/Instagram

In an interview with Edge Media Network, Koch said he’s had to take on a number of jobs between auditions in recent years, including being a yoga teacher and “scooping ice cream at Salt and Straw”. In New York, he paid his rent by modelling, according to his Netflix profile: “I did a lot of e-commerce work, working with the Gap and Patagonia and some other brands.”