'Blind Side' subject Oher alleges Tuohys
made millions off lie
ESPN,
by
Michael A. Fletcher
Original Article
Posted By: zephyrgirl,
8/15/2023 1:52:54 PM
Retired NFL star Michael Oher, whose supposed adoption out of grinding poverty by a wealthy, white family was immortalized in the 2009 movie "The Blind Side," petitioned a Tennessee court Monday with allegations that a central element of the story was a lie concocted by the family to enrich itself at his expense. The 14-page petition, filed in Shelby County, Tennessee, probate court, alleges that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, who took Oher into their home as a high school student, never adopted him.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
earlybird 8/15/2023 2:05:57 PM (No. 1534949)
Careful reading of the articles about the Tuohy’s substituting a conservatorship for adoption gave them complete control over his image, name, royalties, etc, and funneled great amounts of what should have been his earnings to their family and their foundation.
They took advantage of a naive teenager and he did not become aware of their fraud until February 2023.
I fail to understand why many here are making him the bad guy. Nothing could be further from the truth.
No one should be able to exploit a child by lying to them and cheating them.
17 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Newtsche 8/15/2023 2:07:53 PM (No. 1534951)
So give him millions, watch him self destruct, sell that movie -- The Blind Side: Reality Bites
3 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
earlybird 8/15/2023 2:11:40 PM (No. 1534953)
Hit submit too soon. #1 should have said:
Careful reading of the articles about the Tuohy’s substituting a conservatorship for adoption gave them complete control over his image, name, royalties, etc, and funneled great amounts of what should have been his earnings to their family and their foundation, should have caused us to be appalled at the Tuohy’s action. It is not normal to place a chld in a conservatorship and lie to him that he’s being adopted.
11 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
earlybird 8/15/2023 2:15:57 PM (No. 1534954)
Their conservatorship should have ended when he was 25 (he is now 37) but it did not. He did not know it existed until this last February and the Tuohys were not about to give up their cash cow so they kept mum for many years.
8 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
voxpopuli 8/15/2023 2:16:47 PM (No. 1534956)
stopped reading at espn
15 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
earlybird 8/15/2023 2:35:35 PM (No. 1534969)
It is a fine article. It is long. It had to be. A rather comprehensive , detailed report.
I could almost begin to understand so-called “systemic racism”...
4 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
WV.Hillbilly 8/15/2023 2:55:12 PM (No. 1534978)
HE says. This is all his side of the story.
Did I mention he has a newly released book?
I believe he was an adult when he signed all these documents. He either had poor or no legal representation.
"People look at me, and they take things away from me because of a movie," Oher told ESPN in 2015. "They don't really see the skills and the kind of player I am."
That's not how it works in the NFL. You make a career on how you perform on the field.
7 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
NorthernDog 8/15/2023 3:00:06 PM (No. 1534985)
The Tuohys are maintaining they only got nominal payments from the movie. If they told Oher that the conservatorship was just like an adoption, that was wrong. But I don't know if it's a crime. Someone ended up making a small fortune on his story and it wasn't Michael.
5 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Flyball Dogs 8/15/2023 3:26:48 PM (No. 1534996)
Another article I read yesterday said Sean Tuohy sold his restaurants and pocketed $200m,
If so, it seems unlikely he would need to profit from Mr Oher’s name etc.
I think there’s more to the story than what is initially being reported.
15 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
skacmar 8/15/2023 4:03:42 PM (No. 1535010)
The actual Michael Oher story and the Hollywood version of the story are likely to be different. Hollywood writers take "artistic" liberties all the time. Who wants to go see a story of an already good football player getting good grades go live with a good family so that he can play at a good school and get into college and drafted into the NFL? The story of a poor black kid doing poorly in school, basically homeless, but with promise getting help from a nice family, becoming successful in school, sports and ultimately the NFL draft is more of a feel good story people want to see. That is what they turned Oher's story into. The movie has been out a long time and Oher is just now discovering that the story was changed?
9 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Griller1 8/15/2023 4:44:14 PM (No. 1535026)
OP, I was having a discussion on the way home form a vacation yesterday, and I spoke almost the exact words you wrote. This sounds like the classic story of a poor person who got a lot of money and blew through it, then went after the people who actually helped him along the way. Shameful and disgusting.
6 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
LC Chihuahua 8/15/2023 7:23:35 PM (No. 1535093)
Strange. Didn't anyone question where the paychecks were going? Both from his NFL career and the movie. They are only noticing this now because Oher spoke out? Follow the money I guess and see where it goes.
3 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
WV.Hillbilly 8/15/2023 8:29:21 PM (No. 1535126)
https://www.theblaze.com/fearless/oped/whitlock-michael-oher-is-every-bit-as-broken-as-the-media-members-selling-his-blind-side-lie
3 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
JHHolliday 8/15/2023 9:10:47 PM (No. 1535143)
Same as #5. I’ll wait to see both sides. Maybe the Touhys cheated him or he’s broke and looking for some sort of payout. I don’t know but I’ll wait to see. Michael may have p****ed away his money and now is ginning up a lawsuit to extort some money. Then again, the Touhys may have totally screwed a naive young black kid. Time will tell.
2 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
greyseal 8/15/2023 11:25:12 PM (No. 1535181)
OK, let's be real here. A rich white family stepped in to help a disadvantaged black teen. They housed him, fed him, paid for tutors, and provided a way for him to go to college. They weren't clairvoyant so they had no idea that he'd finish school, go to the NFL, avoid injuries, and somehow become a "cash cow" they could milk to augment their income. They didn't write the book or produce the movie. According to their side of the story, the writer shared one of his points from the movie deal with them and it was split equally among all of the family members involved, including Michael. It amounted to $60-70K each in total. Michael earned more than $16 million during his NFL career but I've seen nothing about where it all went.
As to the conservatorship, the family says they had to establish it because they couldn't adopt him because he was too old. Maybe they're lying, maybe they got bad legal advice, but it appears that Michael wasn't living on the streets while in the NFL so his salary was going somewhere to provide him a lifestyle.
In the end, it appears that no good deed goes unpunished.
greyseal
2 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
5 handicap 8/16/2023 6:05:48 AM (No. 1535232)
Is Oher dead of overdose, incarcerated as a felon, or worse? What do you suppose his life would have been like if the Touhys hadn't intrerviened? Where's the gratitude regardless of motivation? There's Michael keeping the "N" word viable...it must be the DNA!
1 person likes this.
Below, you will find ...
Most Recent Articles posted by "zephyrgirl"
and
Most Active Articles (last 48 hours)
Comments:
I have to wonder if Michael Oher is out of money and is shaking the Touhy family money tree. At first blush, he seems very ungrateful.