The former member of Menudo 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,” he said. Rosselló pointing with his finger at an old photograph of Menendez together with the members of the band and its creator, edgardo diaz.
The images are part of the documentary Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed, which opens on May 2 in the United States and for which the NBC channel published a preview on Tuesday.
Rosselló entered into Slight 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.
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, also the group’s manager and producer, whom in 2014 he also accused of having raped him.
“I haven’t talked about it because everything in this life has its time, and now I’m spiritually ready because God is giving me strength. (…) Edgardo Díaz sexually abused us. I can’t speak for others, I’m going to talk about myself”, the singer said 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 throw me out of the group”he expressed.
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. She said she wanted to talk to him alone and 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.
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 Daily News at the time.
The sexual abuse argument was ultimately not proven in court.
Both were sentenced to life imprisonment.
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