2023-04-19 00:29:40
- Writing
- BBC News World
image source, Getty Images
Menudo in 1985, with the integration of Ricky Martin, Charlie Rivera, Roy Rosselló, Robby Rosa and Ray Acevedo.
Former Menudo member Roy Rosselló claimed that record executive José Menéndez, murdered by his two sons in 1989, sexually abused him when he was a member of the iconic teen band.
“This is the man who raped me. This is the pedophile,” Rosselló said, pointing to an old photograph of Menéndez with the band members and their creator, Edgardo Díaz.
The images are part of the documentary Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayedwhich opens on May 2 in the United States and of which the NBC channel published an advance on Tuesday.
Rosselló joined Menudo in 1983, when he was 13 years old, and at the end of that year the group signed a contract with the RCA record company, of which Menéndez was then executive vice president.
“It is time for the world to know the truth,” said Rosselló, who is 51 years old.
image source, Getty Images
José Menéndez took Menudo to its most successful time in the US At the 1984 Grammy Awards, they posed with Michael Jackson, the world’s greatest pop star at the time.
The Puerto Rican assured that the rape occurred at Menéndez’s house in New Jersey when he was 14 years old, and that he was taken by Díaz, the group’s manager and producer, whom in 2014 he also accused of having raped him.
“I have not spoken regarding it because everything in this life has its moment, and now I am spiritually ready because God is giving me strength. (…) Edgardo Díaz sexually abused us. I cannot speak for others, I will speak me”, said the singer nine years ago on Brazilian television.
Rosselló said that he was 13 years old at the time, that it happened several times and that, including himself, there were “two or three” Díaz’s victims. “He threatened me that if I didn’t do it, he was going to kick me out of the group,” he said.
The artist was part of the Puerto Rican youth quintet until 1986 when he turned 16, the age at which Díaz changed the members for younger ones.
Díaz repeatedly denied the accusations.
A rumor in the trial 30 years ago
In the new documentary, one of Menéndez’s sons, Lyle, claims that at some point they heard rumors that something had happened with Menudo.
His brother Erik adds: “My father was one of the men who chose and selected the new members of the group (…) I specifically remember that he took one of the children and left. He said he wanted to talk to him alone and he left. They went upstairs in the house.”
Rosselló was selected before Menéndez’s agreement with the band and, according to what he told the Mexican channel TV Azteca in 2020, he did not audition but was chosen directly by Díaz because the adult “was in love” with him.
In that interview, he also assured that other adults around the musical group sexually abused him, but he did not want to give names.
The rumors cited by Lyle Menéndez were part of the trial he faced with his brother between 1993 and 1996 for having shot and killed his father and mother on August 20, 1989 at their home in Beverly Hills, California.
The father was shot six times with a shotgun that his sons had bought days before the attack; the mother, 10 bullets.
image source, Getty Images
Erik and Lyle Menéndez before the judge in March 1994.
After the crime, the children told the police that their parents had been found murdered in the house.
The event shocked Americans and the trials to which the Menéndez brothers were subjected captivated the attention of the entire country.
During the process there were two opposing explanations of the motive for the crime.
Prosecutors argued that the young men had killed their successful parents to inherit their multimillion-dollar estate.
But defense lawyers claimed the murder was revenge for the sexual abuse the father allegedly subjected them to.
Lawyer Leslie Abramson said during the trial that she knew the story of the former Menudo member, but that she believed it was not appropriate to call him to testify because he had a career, according to the New York newspaper. Daily News.
The sexual abuse argument was ultimately not proven in court.
Both were sentenced to life imprisonment.
image source, Getty Images
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