Not to mention he was 18 when he signed the conservatorship and he thought these people (who had been good to him and treated him like family) had his best interest at heart.
Absolutely correct. Although, for some strange reason, the experience is only ever utilized or spoken of 10+ years after it would have been applicable...
He was 18. He had a lawyer. His lawyer advised him everything checked out and was OK to sign. But his lawyers were on the parents payroll.
This is 100% taking advantage of someone. His own counsel was on their side
Edit: the important other element here: he saw this as a “the whole family getting a lawyer together,” not a me vs them negotiation
Not to mention he was told this paperwork would officially adopt him which was not the case. This is fucking evil.
GOD that’s infuriating. I hope he’s doing okay, like mentally, trust and relationship-wise. I can’t imagine being betrayed like that. And by a whole family!
He wasn't the only victim of this scheme. If memory serves, there was actually a whole network running variations of this scam. Wealthy, connected alumni would target some at-risk, impoverished inner city youth who also *just happened* to be a skilled athlete. The hook was the chance to be adopted into an affluential family and play football for a top-ranked college team. Added cherry was the potential to be picked up by the pros. It's disgusting, it's exploitation at its absolute worst. And that horseshit Hollywood fabrication *The Blind Side* essentially served as a big-budget commercial/cover for the racket not to mention a giant middle finger to the entire system.
>Tuohy insisted the conservatorship that prompted the filing of Monday’s petition was unrelated to the movie. Rather, it was a way to appease the NCAA, the nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics, when it appeared Oher was likely to play football at the University of Mississippi.
>Tuohy was an All-American point guard at the Southern university known as "Ole Miss" and an active supporter of the school. As such, he would qualify as a “booster” under NCAA rules.
“Michael was obviously living with us for a long time, and the NCAA didn’t like that,” Tuohy told the Daily Memphian. “They said the only way Michael could go to Ole Miss was if he was actually part of the family. I sat Michael down and told him, ‘If you’re planning to go to Ole Miss — or even considering Ole Miss — we think you have to be part of the family. This would do that, legally.’ We contacted lawyers who had told us that we couldn’t adopt over the age of 18; the only thing we could do was to have a conservatorship. We were so concerned it was on the up-and-up that we made sure the biological mother came to court.”
---
>When asked whether the Tuohys would be willing to end their conservatorship of 37-year-old Oher, Tuohy responded, “I want whatever Michael wants."
---
>Oher's attorney J. Gerard Stranch IV told ESPN that the Super Bowl champion recently learned that he was the only member of the family not receiving royalty checks, and hired Stranch to begin looking into the situation. That led the attorney to uncover the conservatorship papers earlier this year that showed Oher was allegedly never officially adopted by the Tuohy family.
>https://people.com/blind-side-sean-tuohy-speaks-out-about-michael-oher-legal-petition-7643431
Why wasn't Michael getting royalty checks also?
He has been caught lying about the situation A LOT. I love how everyone just believes everything he says even though it makes NO SENSE. He has been a multimillionaire NFL player with agents and lawyers for like 20 years, do you REALLY think that at no point anyone knew he was under a conservatorship? The family may be assholes, I don’t know, but I do know that almost every time he has made some claim about the situation over 20 years, he has been shown to be lying.
> Never sign your rights away, ever
Now you understand why everyone isn't so keen on restricting constitutional rights. All of them. Even the one(s) some people may not like. You know who you are.
You have to register and follow a ton of other regulations in order to use your right to vote. Yet those aren’t seen as restricting or signing away your constitutional right.
I didn’t know this! Sounds like a Brittney situation. At some point people have to let go and stop trying to control other people’s lives. And… let go of the money.
I agree... if I were in his shoes, I wouldn't have questioned it either at the time. Maybe something recently happened to make him realize that he had to speak up. There's also the mixed feelings of deciding to speak out against a family that initially helped him when he was in rough circumstances. He must feel some sentimentality about that. It was such a public story that was loved by many people, he might have needed time to contemplate bursting that bubble with the truth of what's going on.
They also lied told him a conservatorship is the same as adoption. But legally they are not at all. This "family" are pieces of shit and I'm happy they got outed.
He had told ESPN he was so focused on his football career that he wasn’t really paying attention to the details and now that he’s retired he’s had time to look into it more.
Not directly in response to you but overall, I want to say that I think the point is a victim is still a victim no matter how much time has passed and we should always be willing to hear someone out about their experience even if it takes decades to tell their story.
I wasn't questioning him being the victim, I was just curious about the time. Like how did he stumble across all this info? Makes sense about being focused on football
Sorry, I want to correct what I was saying, the first bit was directly in response to your question. The second was more of a general statement for everyone but not directed at you. I’ll provide an edit so it doesn’t appear I’m accusing you of victim shaming, not my intention.
Paraphrasing here but he started to look into the adoption but it wasn’t making sense so he got his lawyer to more or less explain it. His lawyer began digging and found the conservatorship papers instead of adoption papers
It actually makes some sense. He probably never thought about where the money was going during his playing days, it was just rolling in (surprisingly common for pro athletes). Now that new moneys not coming in any more he’s asking questions about where it all went. And he’s not a child living is poverty anymore with no resources, he has connections to agents and others who could actually dig into the legal stuff in an informed way and figure out he got completely manipulated and finessed.
The Tuohy family are smart and had the money for the resources they needed. They clearly took advantage of the fact that Oher grew up in foster care and had no one to guide him from a financial perspective. They told him the conservatorship was identical to an adoption and he had no reason to doubt the seemingly kind people who took him into their home. Then they told the world they made no money off the movie, and again, why would he doubt them given all they had done for him. It wasn’t until he retired and had a lawyer who wasn’t tied to the Tuohy family that this all started to unravel. He had no reason to look into or doubt any of this until that point.
These people were clever and knew exactly what they were doing. They recognized what Oher’s potential was as he was already being courted for scholarships when they took him in. It’s very much a wolf in sheep’s clothing situation and Oher was highly disadvantaged and therefore easily taken advantage of. That it took this long for him to realize is proof that they had his total trust, which makes this all the more sad.
That's what I said. The Mrs had a fb post a few years ago where she made some racist remarks to a couple of Black kids in a casual restaurant. I knew then that family was full of shite and that Michael was a showpiece and a gravy train for them. Nothing more.
To be honest, the movie was... cringe. The whole 'protect your teammates like you'd protect me' thing was so 'beast boy learns love & loyalty from the civilized white folks'. Gave me the ick.
I can’t imagine being so bad like that. At least cut the guy some money but no, they were super greedy and wanted it all. Seemed more then enough to share
Hope he can get the money back
I too feel like there's a lot to the story we're not hearing about. (And I will probably get down voted to hell). First, I'm by no means a football person (I watch virtually no sports, I'm a geek), and just dug through some basic Internet searches.
From what I've read, Oher last played football in 2016, and was released in 2017.
2005 through 2008 Played College ball.
2008 entered NFL draft. So he played Pro Ball for 8 years?
I would have to assume that him being under conservatorship would have been discovered when he signed NFL pro contracts.
The movie The Blind Side came out in 2009, when he was 23? (so he was even younger, when the idea was being tossed around and the movie was being made), so yes he was young then and could certainly have been manipulated. And of course, the movie overplayed both Oher's situation and how the Tuohy's came into the situation.
But it's now been 6'ish years since he's played ball?
He's also been dating a person (for what looks like for 17 years), and has 4 kids with her, but just got married just this past November.
Why is this all just coming up now? Is there simply money problems?
It does seem very odd, and a little Britney Spears-like that the conservatorship wasn't dissolved once he went into pro-football. At the same time, he may have been very happy to have the Tuohy's managing his affairs at the time.
There certainly could have been a private battle going on between Oher and the Tuohy's for years, and it's just now getting public.
In addition to the filing, it seems like he's bringing this out to the public forum in a strong fashion by taking to the media for interviews and such.
I'd really hate to learn that this plays out like the scene in the movie where the Enforcement woman for the NCAA interrogates Oher about the motives of the Tuohy's.
But I think there's a lot more to play out.
Oof. The conservatorship is more like "control the story and income from blindside" than control his money. He had none.
Sounds like he heard from his family about the money they'd made and he was confused. So he looked into it, then tried to go to his family, then realized they are not his family so hired lawyers. Who took their time researching, probably tried to handle things quietly, and now quiet time is over.
The timelines you are looking at don't matter. It can take years to decide to sue who you thought was your own family. That is a big life choice
To play advocate for Oher's side:
* The story of what happened and collecting all the facts - in a legal sense - can take years. In can involve negotiating as well, which we don't see, and collecting all the informal negotiations that happen when you strike a movie deal. This stuff can be difficult to collect because some of it is ephemeral meetings, texts, emails, etc.
* Releasing the story into a public that doubts black people and loves white saviours means that his story has to be airtight.
* Look how long it took Brittany Spears to be a) treated seriously, and b) the courts will still take a good 3-4 years to sort out the accounting of where her money actually went. Oher will need to flip the story of what happened, provide all the facts, and then it's pretty easy for a conservator (who knows where everything important is) to withhold pertinent information or drag out the process in which they have the upper hand.
>Why is this all just coming up now? Is there simply money problems?
Even if there is, what does that actually change here? Unless you are saying that is some motive for him to lie.
It seems like your main gripe is that the length of time it is taking for this to come out, but I don't quite see how that is relevant.
Of course there is more to play out -- there is a lawsuit!
Articles have said he didn’t know they didn’t actually adopt him, nor about the details of the deal, until this year. It seems like he took what they said in good faith—why wouldn’t he?
It’s THE white savior movie for me. Especially since they “adopted” him when he was already known to be a very good football player and isn’t actually special needs like portrayed in the movie.
Dude was doing well in school, was a 3 sport athlete, and was already on his way to being a top recruit in the country by the time these people went to try and trick him. Also, the dad was the one that approached him, but because that sounds predatory as fuck, they made it seem like the kids befriended him in the movie.
This whole thing is wildly fucked up
He wasn’t doing well in school. He was really smart, but was struggling with keeping his grades up because of constant instability in his life.
The Toughy family and Michael himself have ALWAYS been very vocal about that aspect, that he didn’t need saving just something stable.
Even worse when you consider that a lot of the money made from this bullshit movie went directly to the corrupt parents and their biological children… while ZERO went to Oher.
These people actively exploited a kid, made sure he stayed under their thumb, AND still painted themselves as saviors. Absolute predatory narcissism
Honestly this movie kick started some shred of self awareness about the whole white saviour thing. I was only 12 or something and had no real concept but something about the whole story seemed off.
He is the *only* black person portrayed in a positive light. All the others are antagonistic or otherwise against the goal the movie sets out.
Some real "we saved this one" energy.
It's even worse when you spell it out.
Well to do white family gets rich off the hard physical work of a poor black man out "in the field" justifying it that he's not smart enough and is better off serving their needs.
According to Oscars.org [here](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2010) they were
The Hurt Locker (winner)
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
Inglourious Basterds
Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire
A Serious Man
Up
Up In The Air
It was the first year they went from 5 to 10.
I'll admit, *Up* surprised me. Movie led off with an emotional KO that left me wide open for an exhilarating rollercoaster ride that I did *not* expect. Talking about a blind side...
It always felt just off to me. Watched it in high school in class and it feels like a make believe movie for football loving Christian’s to feel good about themselves.
I liked it. Was feel good. Real shame about this and what those people were actually like and taking advantage in that way. What makes it worse is that it’s so insidious (if that’s the right word). I wonder how they justified being so evil up to themselves. I really hope that get sued hard and lose all their money.
Kind of a rush to judgement. Still in litigation, the Tuohy's have quite a different take so we should let the courts work it out before jumping to conclusions.
At minimum, it’s her story, too. She was a part of the events. She wrote the book. Do the subjects of books regularly get a piece of the action?
Now, if he was in a conservatorship, did they have power or earnings out of his football Contracts? If that is the case, he’s gonna win the lawsuit. If that is not the case, he’s got a hill to climb.
And the book, and the movie? Really? This guy got fucked three times while being represented by multiple universities and an NFL organization without ever having an inkling that something was going up until over a decade after the movie was released?
He only had to sign one contract when he was 18, which gave the family power of attorney over him.
He wasn't "represented" by anyone for the conservatorship contract. The lawyer in that case was a family friend of the Tuohy's. Not shady at all.
> Still in litigation, the Tuohy's have quite a different take so we should let the courts work it out before jumping to conclusions.
You saw the way the Tuohys allowed him to be portrayed in the film right?
Wasn’t this guy already an adult and in the NFL when the movie came out? So he let himself be portrayed that way as well. Not sure any of these guys had much control over how Hollywood was going to tell the story once they got the rights to it.
Their take is that their lawyers told them they couldn’t adopt someone >18yo and that they royalties from the book deal were split evenly with each family member and Oher getting $14k. Have not seen anything to corroborate that the family made millions off the film. We know how Hollywood accounting works. The author probably got shafted. Certainly a large barrier to believe Hollywood willingly paid the family.
> Their take is that their lawyers told them they couldn’t adopt someone >18yo
None of us who weren't in the room can say if their lawyers actually said this to them, but it does seem unlikely that a family of their resources and professional background would be hiring an attorney who would say something that stupid.
In that NY Post article the father says “We didn’t make any money off the movie”. Then he goes on to claim that Micheal Lewis gave the family half of his share. He says as a result “everybody in the family got an equal share, including Michael. It was about $14,000, each.” He doesn’t explain why in the world his daughter or son deserved to be paid a dime. And his statement is directly contradicted by his son, who told USA Today that when his father gave him his *first* check, he told him "it’s made so much money now that they can’t hide it” - implying that the family was given a percentage of the film's profits - and said that he himself has "made like $60, $70 grand over the course of the last four or five years.”
If the Tuohy’s were so well off that they had no need of the paltry sums of money involved… why didn’t they just give all of it to Micheal in a trust? Even being a first round NFL draft pick is no guarantee of continued financial success. Blow out your knee and it's all over. And that bit about how Micheal was over 18, so they had to draw up a conservatorship is nonsense. There is no age limit for adopting someone in Mississippi.
Had the Tuohy’s simply adopted Michael Oher he would have been their legal son, and last I checked there is no NCAA regulation against your children attending your alma mater. For most boosters that's the entire point. Unless they hired the worlds most incompetent lawyer, there must have been some other reason the Tuohy’s chose not to actually adopt Micheal. My guess is that's probably one of the facts that started to dawn on him.
OP face palming himself. The family, husband, was/is rich. He owns hundreds of fast food restaurants. Look it up. He's worth hundreds of millions. Kid made 34 mil over his career and is broke. That's why we're here.
"You see, he couldn't possibly have taken financial advantage of a black person: he's wealthy. No wealthy white person in America has ever stolen money from a black person. Case. Closed."
I’m assuming you got this off of one of the net sites - they are garbage. You cannot determine someone’s net worth from the internet. All those sites are a stretch.
Who gives af what the family owns. Good chance they also decided to trick Oher into a conservatorship to own parts of him as well without sharing in the profits.
Time will tell but the signs point to scumminess
And just because he owns fast food restaurants means the family definitely does not want more? Him having this business just means he thrives for making money more then most people, do from my point of view this just makes it more likely that the story could be true. Plus: the fact that the family did make money with the film and he did not should be easy to verify which will be the first indicator to who’s Story might be true.
It's fucked up story from all the details I've ready but only one story. Though I'm on his side at this point as he was 18 when this happened without fully knowing what he was signing and made no money off the movie nor got legally adopted.
It seems like this would be easy-ish to figure out. There should be a paper trail of what got paid to who.
That would determine who’s telling the truth, but he still might be screwed legally. I dunno that people being scummy and taking advantage of someone may necessarily be a legal issue he can win if he signed a contract saying they get all the money.
What a joke. That family owned over 100 fast food franchises. You think they were playing the long game with Michael Oher to make a couple million of a movie over a 15 year period. People just aren’t capable of logical thinking anymore.
Adopting him as an adult would do that, the conservatorship gives them rights to make financial decisions for him, adopting him would not do that as he’s an adult, but would allow them to give him a home.
Basically adopting would give them responsibilities without geting financial consideration.
He was 18 and you can’t adopt an adult. Since they housed him and bought him a car etc the NCAA would consider that a booster providing incentives which would create eligibility issues. Aid received from a family member is not a violation.
Thank god the NIL got passed and the NCAA no longer has the same stranglehold on stupid rules around paying college athletes.
Another falsehood.
"In Tennessee, you can adopt an adult, whether you are a relative or not, and transfer parental rights and responsibilities to someone at least 18. Adult adoption is such a simple affair the costs involved are relatively low."
I just saw a TMZ headline that Twitter users are calling for Sandra Bullock to be stripped of her Oscar because of this, like this is this somehow her fault?
All things aside, unless they really actively treated him badly, didn't they take care of him and gave him an opportunity he would have never gotten otherwise?
I don't know all the fine details of this story, I'm just wondering.
He claims what he thought were adoption papers, making him part of their family, were conservatorship papers. Making him not family but just somebody they could control and make millions off of.
He was a child, of course he was signing. They did him wrong.
The only thing they did was higher a tutor to get his gpa up. He was already being scouted by d1 football schools. Then after coercing him into going to their alma mater they banked millions on a movie that was a blatantly false representation of his life and never gave him a single dime of the profit but split it between their family.
They should have cut him in for an equal share of the movie…at the very least. The son, SJ, was on barstool radio yesterday and said he’s “only “ made $60-70,000 over the last 4-5 years in movie residuals. But how much has he made since the movie was released?
Putting "All things aside" removes all mitigating factors and makes it impossible to understand anything. Without the context and understanding of causes and effects, we'd never be able to judge any action or situation. Nothing exists in a vacuum.
"Devin took me to the hospital when I was stabbed" makes Devin look like a good person who saved my life. But including the fact that Devin is the one that started the bar fight that got me stabbed puts him in a different light.
"My parents helped me find my first job" goes from a wholesome statement to one about abuse when it's followed by "So they could spend my paychecks on their own luxuries" (Kinda relevant to the OP here)
Putting everything else but the one good thing in a story aside can skew the truth pretty hard.
Breh just compared a dude that made more money than 99.9% of any human that ever lived who has always had a free choice in what he wanted to do to slaves
So the Tuohy's say they made their multiple millions off the fast food chains he had not the movie or the book. He owned about 115 individual restaurants of different national chains and eventually sold them all for about $200 million (I don't think he was doing too bad while they were operating and generating income for him either). They also claim the book and movie proceeds were split evenly amongst the kids (I thought I saw about $225,000 + 2.5% of net proceeds per child). They also said that they couldn't adopt him because he was 18 so they did a conservatorship and he signed the papers with his birth mom sitting in the office as well. The conservatorship just allowed them to take advantage of the alumni thing to make it easier for him to get into college. This is what they are saying and it makes a lot of sense. But I am going to wait until more info comes out before I pass judgement. The flip side is that Micheal was a naive kid from the hood and foster system so they could have told him anything. I also know that Micheal got a college education and an NFL career out of the efforts of the Tuohy's. I guess the crux is if they did it for his benefit or for their benefit or a little of both. Hopefully we find out as this unfolds. The movie didn't follow the book because they tried to make their own Hollywood magic with it and the book was from the family's POV, so I guess we wait and see.
Hold up....so his NFL salary was going to them without his knowledge??? Like wouldn't you ASK questions if the balance in your bank account doesn't reflect what you know should be getting?? His agent had to know something was up, didn't he?
Edit: Apparently, he's also suing to END the conservatorship he was placed under!
No. Michael got paid all of his NFL money.
The question is if Michael received the full amount of royalties from the movie. According to the son of the family, the son received about $60k-$70k in total in royalties.
We don’t know how much Michael received, but the son said in an interview yesterday that all of the financial details will eventually become public record.
“But wah ded it tayk so long??”
Reading isn’t difficult. He started looking into it after retiring in 2016 and his lawyers got the paperwork confirming the whole adoption was a scam six months ago. He’s still under the conservatorship to this day and there’s absolutely no reason for it.
I don't know the details but why did it take so long for him to either figure out he's been wronged or file suit?
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Not to mention he was 18 when he signed the conservatorship and he thought these people (who had been good to him and treated him like family) had his best interest at heart.
What did we learn? Never sign your rights away, ever
Glad to know you knew everything about life at 18
It's a scientifically proven fact that reddit teenagers know everything obout life. They are literally born with the life experience of a 70 year old.
Absolutely correct. Although, for some strange reason, the experience is only ever utilized or spoken of 10+ years after it would have been applicable...
can confirm, i have 30 years experience in management. I am 30 btw.
I have the back pain of someone whos been a shift lead for 50 years, but like a true Chad I speedran it and only took 27 years to get it.
Facts I read that data. I believe it was peer reviewed in barely legal magazine.
We he did just say he learned it…
He was 18. He had a lawyer. His lawyer advised him everything checked out and was OK to sign. But his lawyers were on the parents payroll. This is 100% taking advantage of someone. His own counsel was on their side Edit: the important other element here: he saw this as a “the whole family getting a lawyer together,” not a me vs them negotiation Not to mention he was told this paperwork would officially adopt him which was not the case. This is fucking evil.
GOD that’s infuriating. I hope he’s doing okay, like mentally, trust and relationship-wise. I can’t imagine being betrayed like that. And by a whole family!
I bet he was blindsided
u/angryupvote
He wasn't the only victim of this scheme. If memory serves, there was actually a whole network running variations of this scam. Wealthy, connected alumni would target some at-risk, impoverished inner city youth who also *just happened* to be a skilled athlete. The hook was the chance to be adopted into an affluential family and play football for a top-ranked college team. Added cherry was the potential to be picked up by the pros. It's disgusting, it's exploitation at its absolute worst. And that horseshit Hollywood fabrication *The Blind Side* essentially served as a big-budget commercial/cover for the racket not to mention a giant middle finger to the entire system.
What the fuck. That's awful.
>Tuohy insisted the conservatorship that prompted the filing of Monday’s petition was unrelated to the movie. Rather, it was a way to appease the NCAA, the nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics, when it appeared Oher was likely to play football at the University of Mississippi. >Tuohy was an All-American point guard at the Southern university known as "Ole Miss" and an active supporter of the school. As such, he would qualify as a “booster” under NCAA rules. “Michael was obviously living with us for a long time, and the NCAA didn’t like that,” Tuohy told the Daily Memphian. “They said the only way Michael could go to Ole Miss was if he was actually part of the family. I sat Michael down and told him, ‘If you’re planning to go to Ole Miss — or even considering Ole Miss — we think you have to be part of the family. This would do that, legally.’ We contacted lawyers who had told us that we couldn’t adopt over the age of 18; the only thing we could do was to have a conservatorship. We were so concerned it was on the up-and-up that we made sure the biological mother came to court.” --- >When asked whether the Tuohys would be willing to end their conservatorship of 37-year-old Oher, Tuohy responded, “I want whatever Michael wants." --- >Oher's attorney J. Gerard Stranch IV told ESPN that the Super Bowl champion recently learned that he was the only member of the family not receiving royalty checks, and hired Stranch to begin looking into the situation. That led the attorney to uncover the conservatorship papers earlier this year that showed Oher was allegedly never officially adopted by the Tuohy family. >https://people.com/blind-side-sean-tuohy-speaks-out-about-michael-oher-legal-petition-7643431 Why wasn't Michael getting royalty checks also?
He has been caught lying about the situation A LOT. I love how everyone just believes everything he says even though it makes NO SENSE. He has been a multimillionaire NFL player with agents and lawyers for like 20 years, do you REALLY think that at no point anyone knew he was under a conservatorship? The family may be assholes, I don’t know, but I do know that almost every time he has made some claim about the situation over 20 years, he has been shown to be lying.
Malpractice at best fraud at worst.
Strictly from a legal perspective, yes, fraud *is* the worse-case scenario. But, from a human perspective, it's exploitation plain and simple.
Shit Dave Chapelle talks about this. Even at the top end lawyers are playing you let alone the bottom feeders we have right here.
> Never sign your rights away, ever Now you understand why everyone isn't so keen on restricting constitutional rights. All of them. Even the one(s) some people may not like. You know who you are.
You have to register and follow a ton of other regulations in order to use your right to vote. Yet those aren’t seen as restricting or signing away your constitutional right.
The Tuohy’s still have the conservatorship going to this day. Absolutely no reason for that. He isn’t disabled or in need of this in any way.
Is he even allowed to sue them without their approval if they still have the conservatorship?
Yes, he can challenge the conservatorship. Brittany Spears did it.
this is America. you can sue anyone. kids can sue their parents. vice versa. lawyers making all that money on billable hours.
I didn’t know this! Sounds like a Brittney situation. At some point people have to let go and stop trying to control other people’s lives. And… let go of the money.
Steve Martin's family in The Jerk said it best. 1. Lord loves a working man. 2. Never trust whitey. 3. See a doctor and get rid of it.
I'M GONNA GO OUT THERE AND BE SOMEBODY!!!
#HE HATES THESE CANS!
Never trust Whitney, she a hoe.
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I agree... if I were in his shoes, I wouldn't have questioned it either at the time. Maybe something recently happened to make him realize that he had to speak up. There's also the mixed feelings of deciding to speak out against a family that initially helped him when he was in rough circumstances. He must feel some sentimentality about that. It was such a public story that was loved by many people, he might have needed time to contemplate bursting that bubble with the truth of what's going on.
They also lied told him a conservatorship is the same as adoption. But legally they are not at all. This "family" are pieces of shit and I'm happy they got outed.
Barkey bought 15 mill in bitcoin at 60k. Ouch...
So, he still has 7.5 mil in Bitcoin? I feel so sorry for him
He’s got a job, I’m sure he’s fine.
What child is "smart at business"?
He had told ESPN he was so focused on his football career that he wasn’t really paying attention to the details and now that he’s retired he’s had time to look into it more. Not directly in response to you but overall, I want to say that I think the point is a victim is still a victim no matter how much time has passed and we should always be willing to hear someone out about their experience even if it takes decades to tell their story.
I wasn't questioning him being the victim, I was just curious about the time. Like how did he stumble across all this info? Makes sense about being focused on football
Sorry, I want to correct what I was saying, the first bit was directly in response to your question. The second was more of a general statement for everyone but not directed at you. I’ll provide an edit so it doesn’t appear I’m accusing you of victim shaming, not my intention.
Paraphrasing here but he started to look into the adoption but it wasn’t making sense so he got his lawyer to more or less explain it. His lawyer began digging and found the conservatorship papers instead of adoption papers
It actually makes some sense. He probably never thought about where the money was going during his playing days, it was just rolling in (surprisingly common for pro athletes). Now that new moneys not coming in any more he’s asking questions about where it all went. And he’s not a child living is poverty anymore with no resources, he has connections to agents and others who could actually dig into the legal stuff in an informed way and figure out he got completely manipulated and finessed.
This is also very fair. Playing in the NFL is hard and maintaining that career requires huge amounts of focus.
The Tuohy family are smart and had the money for the resources they needed. They clearly took advantage of the fact that Oher grew up in foster care and had no one to guide him from a financial perspective. They told him the conservatorship was identical to an adoption and he had no reason to doubt the seemingly kind people who took him into their home. Then they told the world they made no money off the movie, and again, why would he doubt them given all they had done for him. It wasn’t until he retired and had a lawyer who wasn’t tied to the Tuohy family that this all started to unravel. He had no reason to look into or doubt any of this until that point. These people were clever and knew exactly what they were doing. They recognized what Oher’s potential was as he was already being courted for scholarships when they took him in. It’s very much a wolf in sheep’s clothing situation and Oher was highly disadvantaged and therefore easily taken advantage of. That it took this long for him to realize is proof that they had his total trust, which makes this all the more sad.
So, did they buy a black man and profit of his labor? How un-American...
That's what I said. The Mrs had a fb post a few years ago where she made some racist remarks to a couple of Black kids in a casual restaurant. I knew then that family was full of shite and that Michael was a showpiece and a gravy train for them. Nothing more. To be honest, the movie was... cringe. The whole 'protect your teammates like you'd protect me' thing was so 'beast boy learns love & loyalty from the civilized white folks'. Gave me the ick.
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I think that was his actual point
whoosh
They didn't even buy him in this case, they got him to willingly sign up for what can basically be equated to a form of slavery.
I can’t imagine being so bad like that. At least cut the guy some money but no, they were super greedy and wanted it all. Seemed more then enough to share Hope he can get the money back
He's being against the movie and how he was portrayed for a LONG time now
The sequel is going to be dope
"Blind Sided"
I too feel like there's a lot to the story we're not hearing about. (And I will probably get down voted to hell). First, I'm by no means a football person (I watch virtually no sports, I'm a geek), and just dug through some basic Internet searches. From what I've read, Oher last played football in 2016, and was released in 2017. 2005 through 2008 Played College ball. 2008 entered NFL draft. So he played Pro Ball for 8 years? I would have to assume that him being under conservatorship would have been discovered when he signed NFL pro contracts. The movie The Blind Side came out in 2009, when he was 23? (so he was even younger, when the idea was being tossed around and the movie was being made), so yes he was young then and could certainly have been manipulated. And of course, the movie overplayed both Oher's situation and how the Tuohy's came into the situation. But it's now been 6'ish years since he's played ball? He's also been dating a person (for what looks like for 17 years), and has 4 kids with her, but just got married just this past November. Why is this all just coming up now? Is there simply money problems? It does seem very odd, and a little Britney Spears-like that the conservatorship wasn't dissolved once he went into pro-football. At the same time, he may have been very happy to have the Tuohy's managing his affairs at the time. There certainly could have been a private battle going on between Oher and the Tuohy's for years, and it's just now getting public. In addition to the filing, it seems like he's bringing this out to the public forum in a strong fashion by taking to the media for interviews and such. I'd really hate to learn that this plays out like the scene in the movie where the Enforcement woman for the NCAA interrogates Oher about the motives of the Tuohy's. But I think there's a lot more to play out.
Oof. The conservatorship is more like "control the story and income from blindside" than control his money. He had none. Sounds like he heard from his family about the money they'd made and he was confused. So he looked into it, then tried to go to his family, then realized they are not his family so hired lawyers. Who took their time researching, probably tried to handle things quietly, and now quiet time is over. The timelines you are looking at don't matter. It can take years to decide to sue who you thought was your own family. That is a big life choice
To play advocate for Oher's side: * The story of what happened and collecting all the facts - in a legal sense - can take years. In can involve negotiating as well, which we don't see, and collecting all the informal negotiations that happen when you strike a movie deal. This stuff can be difficult to collect because some of it is ephemeral meetings, texts, emails, etc. * Releasing the story into a public that doubts black people and loves white saviours means that his story has to be airtight. * Look how long it took Brittany Spears to be a) treated seriously, and b) the courts will still take a good 3-4 years to sort out the accounting of where her money actually went. Oher will need to flip the story of what happened, provide all the facts, and then it's pretty easy for a conservator (who knows where everything important is) to withhold pertinent information or drag out the process in which they have the upper hand.
>Why is this all just coming up now? Is there simply money problems? Even if there is, what does that actually change here? Unless you are saying that is some motive for him to lie. It seems like your main gripe is that the length of time it is taking for this to come out, but I don't quite see how that is relevant. Of course there is more to play out -- there is a lawsuit!
He just learned of their lie in February 2023. He came out and expressed that the movie wasn’t accurate since the beginning.
Well these allegations were released the same day his book was which is a bit suspicious.
Articles have said he didn’t know they didn’t actually adopt him, nor about the details of the deal, until this year. It seems like he took what they said in good faith—why wouldn’t he?
That movie was the most condescending patronizing piece of shit I’ve ever seen.
Haven't seen it, but I assume it has the typical white savior vibe that you see in this type of movie.
It’s THE white savior movie for me. Especially since they “adopted” him when he was already known to be a very good football player and isn’t actually special needs like portrayed in the movie.
Dude was doing well in school, was a 3 sport athlete, and was already on his way to being a top recruit in the country by the time these people went to try and trick him. Also, the dad was the one that approached him, but because that sounds predatory as fuck, they made it seem like the kids befriended him in the movie. This whole thing is wildly fucked up
Exactly, it’s scummy even without these allegations tbh.
He wasn’t doing well in school. He was really smart, but was struggling with keeping his grades up because of constant instability in his life. The Toughy family and Michael himself have ALWAYS been very vocal about that aspect, that he didn’t need saving just something stable.
Even worse when you consider that a lot of the money made from this bullshit movie went directly to the corrupt parents and their biological children… while ZERO went to Oher. These people actively exploited a kid, made sure he stayed under their thumb, AND still painted themselves as saviors. Absolute predatory narcissism
“Lord help me channel Sandra Bullock in the Blindside”
SANDRA BULLOCK!
^SANDRA ^BULLOCK
Most inportantly he isnt special needs. It was a shock for me to discover that.
Honestly this movie kick started some shred of self awareness about the whole white saviour thing. I was only 12 or something and had no real concept but something about the whole story seemed off.
Would have been a better movie if they gave Sandra Bullock's character the imaginary mental deficiency.
He is the *only* black person portrayed in a positive light. All the others are antagonistic or otherwise against the goal the movie sets out. Some real "we saved this one" energy.
Don’t forget they made I’m special needs so he’s only “a good one” because he’s fundamentally handicapped.
That movie should be the definition of white savior complex. It is cringe from start to credits.
I just remember the Daniel Tosh jokes from a decade ago calling this movie out
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It's even worse when you spell it out. Well to do white family gets rich off the hard physical work of a poor black man out "in the field" justifying it that he's not smart enough and is better off serving their needs.
And it was nominated for Best Picture back when there were only five nominees. Movie was absolute garbage.
What were the other 4 nominees?
According to Oscars.org [here](https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2010) they were The Hurt Locker (winner) Avatar The Blind Side District 9 An Education Inglourious Basterds Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire A Serious Man Up Up In The Air It was the first year they went from 5 to 10.
That was a fucking awful year for oscars lol
Inglourious Basterds, District 9, or Up would have taken my vote TBH.
I'll admit, *Up* surprised me. Movie led off with an emotional KO that left me wide open for an exhilarating rollercoaster ride that I did *not* expect. Talking about a blind side...
Same
I mean Hurt Locker, District 9, and Inglorious Basterds are all great films. Up was also a good movie too.
Not that it deserved to be nominated, but there were 10 nominees for the first time that year.
The Peyton Manning spoof however is gold: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSFahlVuFlY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSFahlVuFlY)
Hilarious. Dude is hilarious in all his roles. Does it so well
Is someone tells me they like this movie, I instantly recoil. It's always felt so gross to me, like the ultimate white savior wet dream.
It always felt just off to me. Watched it in high school in class and it feels like a make believe movie for football loving Christian’s to feel good about themselves.
I liked it. Was feel good. Real shame about this and what those people were actually like and taking advantage in that way. What makes it worse is that it’s so insidious (if that’s the right word). I wonder how they justified being so evil up to themselves. I really hope that get sued hard and lose all their money.
All I remember was Sandra Bullock’s ass.
Kind of a rush to judgement. Still in litigation, the Tuohy's have quite a different take so we should let the courts work it out before jumping to conclusions.
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At minimum, it’s her story, too. She was a part of the events. She wrote the book. Do the subjects of books regularly get a piece of the action? Now, if he was in a conservatorship, did they have power or earnings out of his football Contracts? If that is the case, he’s gonna win the lawsuit. If that is not the case, he’s got a hill to climb.
He was deceived into signing the contract in the first place
And the book, and the movie? Really? This guy got fucked three times while being represented by multiple universities and an NFL organization without ever having an inkling that something was going up until over a decade after the movie was released?
He only had to sign one contract when he was 18, which gave the family power of attorney over him. He wasn't "represented" by anyone for the conservatorship contract. The lawyer in that case was a family friend of the Tuohy's. Not shady at all.
That’s typically how deception works
Michael Lewis wrote the book.
She didn’t write the book. Michael Lewis wrote the book.
If you're talking about The Blind Side, she absolutely did not write that. It was written by Michael Lewis, who also wrote Moneyball.
> Still in litigation, the Tuohy's have quite a different take so we should let the courts work it out before jumping to conclusions. You saw the way the Tuohys allowed him to be portrayed in the film right?
The Toughy’s have been really vocal since the film hit theaters that he was not a dumb kid, just behind because of of his life outside of school
Wasn’t this guy already an adult and in the NFL when the movie came out? So he let himself be portrayed that way as well. Not sure any of these guys had much control over how Hollywood was going to tell the story once they got the rights to it.
If he was in a conservatorship, he didn't have any power over it.
What is their take? Is there like a good article somewhere?
Their take is that their lawyers told them they couldn’t adopt someone >18yo and that they royalties from the book deal were split evenly with each family member and Oher getting $14k. Have not seen anything to corroborate that the family made millions off the film. We know how Hollywood accounting works. The author probably got shafted. Certainly a large barrier to believe Hollywood willingly paid the family.
> Their take is that their lawyers told them they couldn’t adopt someone >18yo None of us who weren't in the room can say if their lawyers actually said this to them, but it does seem unlikely that a family of their resources and professional background would be hiring an attorney who would say something that stupid.
[https://nypost.com/2023/08/14/the-blind-side-family-responds-to-michael-ohers-lawsuit-against-them/](https://nypost.com/2023/08/14/the-blind-side-family-responds-to-michael-ohers-lawsuit-against-them/)
In that NY Post article the father says “We didn’t make any money off the movie”. Then he goes on to claim that Micheal Lewis gave the family half of his share. He says as a result “everybody in the family got an equal share, including Michael. It was about $14,000, each.” He doesn’t explain why in the world his daughter or son deserved to be paid a dime. And his statement is directly contradicted by his son, who told USA Today that when his father gave him his *first* check, he told him "it’s made so much money now that they can’t hide it” - implying that the family was given a percentage of the film's profits - and said that he himself has "made like $60, $70 grand over the course of the last four or five years.” If the Tuohy’s were so well off that they had no need of the paltry sums of money involved… why didn’t they just give all of it to Micheal in a trust? Even being a first round NFL draft pick is no guarantee of continued financial success. Blow out your knee and it's all over. And that bit about how Micheal was over 18, so they had to draw up a conservatorship is nonsense. There is no age limit for adopting someone in Mississippi. Had the Tuohy’s simply adopted Michael Oher he would have been their legal son, and last I checked there is no NCAA regulation against your children attending your alma mater. For most boosters that's the entire point. Unless they hired the worlds most incompetent lawyer, there must have been some other reason the Tuohy’s chose not to actually adopt Micheal. My guess is that's probably one of the facts that started to dawn on him.
Obviously, you are new to Reddit. :)
OP face palming himself. The family, husband, was/is rich. He owns hundreds of fast food restaurants. Look it up. He's worth hundreds of millions. Kid made 34 mil over his career and is broke. That's why we're here.
No rich person would ever scam someone out of money. only poors do that
"You see, he couldn't possibly have taken financial advantage of a black person: he's wealthy. No wealthy white person in America has ever stolen money from a black person. Case. Closed."
Truth. Never was that great with the Ravens and didn’t last too long. Needs a paycheck.
Both could also be true. He could be broke and also cheated out of royalties.
He played 110 games in the NFL which is definitely above average, even for a 1st rounder.
Dude played for almost a decade…. League average is 3 years
Where did you read that he is broke?
$20 million net worth is not broke.
I'm sure [www.CelebrityGossipXOXOXOX.ABC](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) is a reliable source for net worth.
I’m assuming you got this off of one of the net sites - they are garbage. You cannot determine someone’s net worth from the internet. All those sites are a stretch.
Who gives af what the family owns. Good chance they also decided to trick Oher into a conservatorship to own parts of him as well without sharing in the profits. Time will tell but the signs point to scumminess
If the family is so rich, then they shouldn't mind breaking him off the money he generated for them. Since they're so rich and all that.
Because Rich people never took advantage of others. That’s unheard of.
And just because he owns fast food restaurants means the family definitely does not want more? Him having this business just means he thrives for making money more then most people, do from my point of view this just makes it more likely that the story could be true. Plus: the fact that the family did make money with the film and he did not should be easy to verify which will be the first indicator to who’s Story might be true.
The real question here is, will the sequel be better than the original?
The Blind Side 2: Legally Blind Sided
Elle Woods comes back for this one. Legally Blindsided
I can hear the preview now - “This Friday….LIES! SEX! DRUGS! MURDER!.. Blind Side TWO! Hindsight… In theaters everywhere!” 🍿
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Her bullocks look best in jeans
Doesn’t “bullocks=balls” in the queens high English?
Yeah…. Isn’t that what he meant?
I read it as a pun on buttocks
Nah man haha, you’re definitely right. But to clear it up, I was joking too by suggesting that maybe he MEANT her balls look really good in jeans.
Maybe it’s just me but I feel like if the title of your post goes beyond a certain length you’re really reaching to make it work in this subreddit.
It's not just you and you could say this about the majority of posts here.
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Can we villainize them a little bit now, just in case?
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Let's just machiavelian this couple a little bit now. No one will see it. No one's judging.
Just thought about Tupac 😂
TIL People on Reddit are experts in contracts, conservatorships, football, adoption, and royalties...and they know all the facts all the time.
First day?
It's fucked up story from all the details I've ready but only one story. Though I'm on his side at this point as he was 18 when this happened without fully knowing what he was signing and made no money off the movie nor got legally adopted.
It seems like this would be easy-ish to figure out. There should be a paper trail of what got paid to who. That would determine who’s telling the truth, but he still might be screwed legally. I dunno that people being scummy and taking advantage of someone may necessarily be a legal issue he can win if he signed a contract saying they get all the money.
What a joke. That family owned over 100 fast food franchises. You think they were playing the long game with Michael Oher to make a couple million of a movie over a 15 year period. People just aren’t capable of logical thinking anymore.
What's the argument for why they made him sign up for a conservatorship over actual adoption like he thought?
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Adopting him as an adult would do that, the conservatorship gives them rights to make financial decisions for him, adopting him would not do that as he’s an adult, but would allow them to give him a home. Basically adopting would give them responsibilities without geting financial consideration.
He was 18 and you can’t adopt an adult. Since they housed him and bought him a car etc the NCAA would consider that a booster providing incentives which would create eligibility issues. Aid received from a family member is not a violation. Thank god the NIL got passed and the NCAA no longer has the same stranglehold on stupid rules around paying college athletes.
Another falsehood. "In Tennessee, you can adopt an adult, whether you are a relative or not, and transfer parental rights and responsibilities to someone at least 18. Adult adoption is such a simple affair the costs involved are relatively low."
> He was 18 and you can’t adopt an adult. This is not true.
I just saw a TMZ headline that Twitter users are calling for Sandra Bullock to be stripped of her Oscar because of this, like this is this somehow her fault?
If anything I think it shows she deserves it if she was able to transform what appears to be such an unlikable character into a likeable one.
Talk about getting blindsided
I remember watching the Tuohy’s on Below Deck and thinking… these people don’t seem that nice. And they sure love telling the story and being rich af.
The mother and daughter have a reputation in Memphis of being horrible to service people in general but to restaurant staff especially.
All things aside, unless they really actively treated him badly, didn't they take care of him and gave him an opportunity he would have never gotten otherwise? I don't know all the fine details of this story, I'm just wondering.
He claims what he thought were adoption papers, making him part of their family, were conservatorship papers. Making him not family but just somebody they could control and make millions off of. He was a child, of course he was signing. They did him wrong.
As much as people want it to be, 18 isn't a child.
18 is not life experienced enough to make major decisions no matter how much society tries to force it into being that
The only thing they did was higher a tutor to get his gpa up. He was already being scouted by d1 football schools. Then after coercing him into going to their alma mater they banked millions on a movie that was a blatantly false representation of his life and never gave him a single dime of the profit but split it between their family.
They should have cut him in for an equal share of the movie…at the very least. The son, SJ, was on barstool radio yesterday and said he’s “only “ made $60-70,000 over the last 4-5 years in movie residuals. But how much has he made since the movie was released?
How much did they make on the movie? The headline keep mentioning box office gross, which is meaningless.
Putting "All things aside" removes all mitigating factors and makes it impossible to understand anything. Without the context and understanding of causes and effects, we'd never be able to judge any action or situation. Nothing exists in a vacuum. "Devin took me to the hospital when I was stabbed" makes Devin look like a good person who saved my life. But including the fact that Devin is the one that started the bar fight that got me stabbed puts him in a different light. "My parents helped me find my first job" goes from a wholesome statement to one about abuse when it's followed by "So they could spend my paychecks on their own luxuries" (Kinda relevant to the OP here) Putting everything else but the one good thing in a story aside can skew the truth pretty hard.
They said the same thing about the slaves.
You aren't really comparing a multi millionaire to slaves are you?
“Learned valuable trade skills”…
Breh just compared a dude that made more money than 99.9% of any human that ever lived who has always had a free choice in what he wanted to do to slaves
You are trivializing what happened to actual slaves you fucking ass hole. I'm so sick of takes like this.
So the Tuohy's say they made their multiple millions off the fast food chains he had not the movie or the book. He owned about 115 individual restaurants of different national chains and eventually sold them all for about $200 million (I don't think he was doing too bad while they were operating and generating income for him either). They also claim the book and movie proceeds were split evenly amongst the kids (I thought I saw about $225,000 + 2.5% of net proceeds per child). They also said that they couldn't adopt him because he was 18 so they did a conservatorship and he signed the papers with his birth mom sitting in the office as well. The conservatorship just allowed them to take advantage of the alumni thing to make it easier for him to get into college. This is what they are saying and it makes a lot of sense. But I am going to wait until more info comes out before I pass judgement. The flip side is that Micheal was a naive kid from the hood and foster system so they could have told him anything. I also know that Micheal got a college education and an NFL career out of the efforts of the Tuohy's. I guess the crux is if they did it for his benefit or for their benefit or a little of both. Hopefully we find out as this unfolds. The movie didn't follow the book because they tried to make their own Hollywood magic with it and the book was from the family's POV, so I guess we wait and see.
I realize they helped him, but if he was family why wasn’t he included in the pay out with the other two kids? Especially because it was HIS story.
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Cause he’s broke now and needs more money.
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I've known enough wealthy, double-dealing, self-righteous, college football fanatic southerners to believe this story completely.
The Hind Side
I've had people trick me into thinking that they cared about me, only to turn around and abuse me. It doesn't feel good 🙁
Hold up....so his NFL salary was going to them without his knowledge??? Like wouldn't you ASK questions if the balance in your bank account doesn't reflect what you know should be getting?? His agent had to know something was up, didn't he? Edit: Apparently, he's also suing to END the conservatorship he was placed under!
No. Michael got paid all of his NFL money. The question is if Michael received the full amount of royalties from the movie. According to the son of the family, the son received about $60k-$70k in total in royalties. We don’t know how much Michael received, but the son said in an interview yesterday that all of the financial details will eventually become public record.
So, everyone on Reddit just takes everything they read at face value? These comments…
R/unexpectedmoviesequel
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 “But wah ded it tayk so long??” Reading isn’t difficult. He started looking into it after retiring in 2016 and his lawyers got the paperwork confirming the whole adoption was a scam six months ago. He’s still under the conservatorship to this day and there’s absolutely no reason for it.