Michael Oher and The Blindside

I am so confused. Loved the Blindside movie and story but it looks like it was more a Hollywood imagining than truth. Why after all these years would he now sue the family? 'Blind Side' subject Oher alleges Tuohys made millions off lie - ESPN

The details are vague, but it seems the lawyers just uncovered the conservatorship he signed with the family?
I’ve read as much as possible and the story rings very true. How sad for this man.

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I have to keep reminding myself that it’s not really Sandra Bullock. :woman_facepalming:

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He only found out recently that what he signed was not at all equivalent to an adoption. And that he was not part of the family like he thought.

I can totally understand not really wanting to confront the situation in earlier years. Plus he was pretty busy with his career. He’s had lawyers going through the details and financials for a while now, and it sure does look really bad.

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Was anyone else really shocked and saddened by this? I read it and turned to my H and said” why are people so awful?”
I’m not naive, but sometimes you just get tired of the greed and lack of humanity. I know this man went on to have a nice career, but this must hurt.

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Saddened but sadly not shocked.

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I remember hearing whispers several years ago (even from Oher himself) that there were a lot of holes in the movie version of the story. The Tuohy’s never seemed genuine to me, in any interviews that I saw back then.

I’m interested to hear the timeline on the money part of it. It was so long ago, it’s hard to reconcile that he (Oher) didn’t make inquiries into where his part of the money was until recently - especially since even the Tuohy kids were getting big checks from the movie and subsequent publicity.

No doubt the Tuohy’s are very wealthy and will lawyer up accordingly. I hope Oher has a strong legal team representing him because this will be a fight.

She’s actually getting dragged a bit on social media by crazy people who believe she should have known about all of this (or that she did know and did the movie anyway) :roll_eyes:

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I think she is probably upset about this news. I don’t expect a comment however because her long time partner just died from ALS. :broken_heart:

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I mean, if they brought him in and gave him love and hope, that’s what matters.

Yes, no one should rip off their kids and that sucks too - and hopefully their motives weren’t ulterior.

But taking the money out of it, where would he be without them? He doesn’t deny they loved him and vice versa.

We seem to read about this often enough - celebrity relatives ripping off their kids.

That part is sad.

But I’m guessing he’s still in a much better place or has been - thanks to their support.

The family was well off before - so in that sense it doesn’t make sense to me.

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He would sleep at the houses of many friends at the time. This family took him in and deceived him about the conservatorship - he thought he was being adopted.
Their birth children receive payouts from the movie and book deals - he does not. He was excluded from the financial benefits.
They exploited him.

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I don’t expect we will ever know all the details and all the motives…but to me it is just sad.

ETA: I do remember that the youngest son went to college in MD when Michael Oher was with the Ravens so it seemed like some kind of relationship continued after the movie story ended. But who knows.

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The movie was cringey to me when it first came out … the great white savior and all that. I’m not surprised by the money piece but am by the level of deception – letting him think he was adopted when this really was just a financial arrangement.

I saw a hilarious video yesterday. Will try to find it.

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The first issue will be the statute of limitations. So much time has passed since he learned, as he admitted in his book, that it was a conservatorship and not an adoption.

I take a dimmer view than most of you all here. I wonder if he has run out of his NFL money and is looking for another payday.

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If true his NFL money is gone, Tuohy’s could bear responsibility for that as Oher and his finances are still under the Tuohy’s control (via the conservatorship)

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It says that he has been estranged from the family for at least 18 months. If they were acting as conservators wouldn’t they be managing his life?

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I don’t know much about how conservatorship works, hopefully some attorneys can weigh in.

Sad Oher and the Tuohy’s are estranged, seems similar to the Britney Spears situation for all those years when her dad was her conservator…they sure seemed estranged even though dad was in charge of finances, contracts, etc.

FWIW it’s ridiculous that Leigh Anne Tuohy’s website says Oher is their adopted son, still today.

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Did they sign his NFL contracts as conservators? Wouldn’t he have wondered why? Maybe not at 18 but in later years? Did he have an agent?

I don’t know what the statute of limitations is in Tennessee on fraud or other claims but 20 years is a very long time.

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It seems that the conservatorship was done in the Shelby County, TN Probate Court (according to news articles). If the conservatorship was petitioned for when Michael Oher had attained his age of majority (which is 18 years old in TN), then under TN law a guardian ad litem should have been appointed for him (unless that requirement was waived by the court). The GAL would have had the responsibility, under TN law, to meet with the Respondent (i.e., Michael Oher) and advise him of his rights, and then report to the court and, inter alia, tell the court what would be in the best interest of the Respondent. See Tenn. Code Ann. sec. 34-1-107. Further, if the Tuohys were conservators over Michael Oher’s estate (finances and property), then they would have to file annual accountings for review and approval by the court overseeing the conservatorship (although the requirement of filing the annual accountings “may be excused in the discretion of the court”). See Tenn. Code Ann. secs. 34-1-111, -111(i).

So something just doesn’t seem right here: either there was a massive failure of the court system overseeing the conservatorship, or there are some failings with Michael Oher’s current narrative. But hashing out different stories is what they have lawsuits for, right?

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Sean Oher said they couldn’t adopt Mike because he had just turned 18. This is a falsehood I believe. This would be an adult adoption. In Tennessee these are legal.

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It was a complete surprise to read about this, still hard to believe it can be true. For starters the movie was based on the book by the experienced author Michael Lewis so he would have had to have missed or concealed the story if things happens the way the recent articles say. And you’d think the movie studio would do their own verification.

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