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Evan Peters Clears Things Up Amid Dahmer Backlash

Evan Peters Clears Things Up Amid Dahmer Backlash
Image credit: Legion-Media

Netflix's take on serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer has proven to be successful — and controversial at the same time.

As soon as Monster: Dahmer hit the screens, people got worried about the mental health of Evan Peters — the actor who portrayed the Milwaukee Monster in such an uncanny and compelling way that it's borderline scary.

Later, Dahmer would get under even more fire, with victims' families taking jabs at Netflix for never reaching out to them before making the show, and fans blasting the platform for putting the show under the LGBTQ+ tag.

As the show's creator Ryan Murphy and Peters, who not only starred in Dahmer but also produced it, try to wrap their heads around the series' legacy, it looks like they could use some rest. Peters, at least, is definitely ready to slow down on darkness a bit.

"I'm going to take a little break from darker roles and explore the light," the actor told Variety. "It would be interesting to me to play something that is a little closer to home, a little more mundane and to explore the details of those kinds of experiences."

While fans support Peters in his desire to take a break from dark roles, they also joke that he is extremely good at being bad — so good that it might be concerning.

"This dude is so good at being bad, I think [...] the FBI should investigate him. Give him an Oscar, then lock him up, that's how good he is," Twitter user charmainebrixx quipped.

Another fan noted that Peters made an "even better Jeffrey Dahmer" than Jeffrey Dahmer himself.

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Despite the backlash that followed the show's premiere, Dahmer has quickly become one of Netflix's biggest hits, amassing more than 1 billion hours viewed over the first 60 days after release. Naturally, the renewal was only a question of time; now, we are to brace ourselves for more seasons of the Monster saga, although even the creators are not sure (or so they say) as to how exactly that would look like.