In a new interview, the 63-year-old actor and former Talk-show host revealed that Menendez is the first “hetero” that she has ever “loved” and “confidence”.

According to Rosie O’Donnell, their relationship has evolved by telephone calls and regular letters over the years.

“He started calling me regularly from the tablet tablet they have,” she shared with The New York Times. “He told me about his life, what he was doing in prison and, for the first time in my life, I felt safe enough to trust and be vulnerable and love a hetero man.”

Lyle was sentenced alongside her younger brother, Erik, for the 1989 murders of their parents, José and Kitty Menendez. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, although they are now trying not to have an immediate eligibility for parole.

O’Donnell’s revelation arrives at a pivotal moment for the Menendez brothers, who each served more than 35 years behind bars. As indicated by NBC NewsOn Friday, a judge in southern California gave the green light for a legal examination which could lead to new penalties. The judge of the Superior Court of the County of Los Angeles, Michael Jesic, rejected the request of the office of the district prosecutor aimed at canceling a previous recommendation to reduce the life sentences of the brothers without parole to 50 years.

With hearings planned for April 17 and 18, the result could make Lyle and Erik eligible immediately to parole.

The connection of O’Donnell with Lyle dates back to 1996, when she expressed her support to the brothers during an appearance on “Larry King Live”. At the time, she expressed her conviction in their assertions that the murders were committed in self -defense after years of alleged abuse.

Shortly after, Lyle sent her a letter thanking her for having defended them, although she did not respond initially, a decision rooted in her own trauma. O’Donnell revealed that “she and her brothers and sisters had been attacked by their father”, and said that Lyle felt that “she” knew “of a personal place that he said was true.”

“At that time, I hadn’t ventured nearly in my family or in my therapy,” she said Times.

It was not until 2022, after watching a documentary on the Menendez affair and discussed it on Tiktok, that the two reconnected. Lyle’s wife, Rebecca Sneed, would have set out to see if O’Donnell would be interested in speaking with him again.

Their first telephone conversation lasted three hours. Since then, the two have maintained a close friendship by regular correspondence, and O’Donnell even visited him in prison.

The Menendez brothers were found guilty of first -degree murder following two separate trials in the 1990s. They said that the murders arose from years of abuse, saying that Lyle had confronted their father, an entertainment leader, on the alleged ill -treatment of Erik and threatened to exhibit him. According to Lyle, his father’s reaction felt threatening.

Prosecutors have long rejected the allegations of abuse, asserting rather than the murders were calculated acts carried out by the financial gain.

The district prosecutor Nathan Hochman said that the evidence, a photocopy of an undated letter, Erik claims to have sent to a cousin in December 1988, does not respect the legal threshold necessary for a judge to grant a new trial.

In February, Newsom ordered the State’s conditional liberation committee to make a “risk assessment” to determine whether the brothers would constitute a significant threat to public security in the event of release. The results are expected by June.