Blind Sided?

[green_bballers13]

https://www.tmz.com/2023/08/15/tuohy-family-claims-michael-oher-attempted-15-mil-shakedown-before-court-filing/

For now, I'm personally siding with the Tuohy family... we'll see.

Any reason why? I don't really know what happened and don't have an opinion, given the little I know. What seems compelling about their position?

I did see the Blind Side, and I know that some parts are fiction. I did think that the whole Ole Miss thing was weird. Why would you care what team your kid plays on? I can't imagine trying to steer my kid to a team because of my own fandom/desires.

[johnnygreen]

https://www.tmz.com/2023/08/15/tuohy-family-claims-michael-oher-attempted-15-mil-shakedown-before-court-filing/

For now, I'm personally siding with the Tuohy family... we'll see.

Any reason why? I don't really know what happened and don't have an opinion, given the little I know. What seems compelling about their position?

They own over 100 fast food franchises and are worth north of $50M. Something seemed off when I heard the story, and I didn't buy it. I figured Oher was doing something shady and was trying to extort money.

[green_bballers13]

https://www.tmz.com/2023/08/15/tuohy-family-claims-michael-oher-attempted-15-mil-shakedown-before-court-filing/

For now, I'm personally siding with the Tuohy family... we'll see.

Any reason why? I don't really know what happened and don't have an opinion, given the little I know. What seems compelling about their position?

They own over 100 fast food franchises and are worth north of $50M. Something seemed off when I heard the story, and I didn't buy it. I figured Oher was doing something shady and was trying to extort money.

This part doesn't seem to persuade me. I only know a handful of rich people, and they rarely offer to pay for other people. There's two ways to accumulate a lot of money- maximize income and minimize expenses.

Also, didn't Oher make $34m in his career? What was the shady part? Having money doesn't mean that people can't take advantage of you.

[Donoghus]

https://www.tmz.com/2023/08/15/tuohy-family-claims-michael-oher-attempted-15-mil-shakedown-before-court-filing/

For now, I'm personally siding with the Tuohy family... we'll see.

Any reason why? I don't really know what happened and don't have an opinion, given the little I know. What seems compelling about their position?

They own over 100 fast food franchises and are worth north of $50M. Something seemed off when I heard the story, and I didn't buy it. I figured Oher was doing something shady and was trying to extort money.

This part doesn't seem to persuade me. I only know a handful of rich people, and they rarely offer to pay for other people. There's two ways to accumulate a lot of money- maximize income and minimize expenses.

Also, didn't Oher make $34m in his career? What was the shady part? Having money doesn't mean that people can't take advantage of you.

Well, if you believe the reports of him trying to shake down the Touhys, I'd certainly call that behavior "shady"

[green_bballers13]

https://www.tmz.com/2023/08/15/tuohy-family-claims-michael-oher-attempted-15-mil-shakedown-before-court-filing/

For now, I'm personally siding with the Tuohy family... we'll see.

Any reason why? I don't really know what happened and don't have an opinion, given the little I know. What seems compelling about their position?

They own over 100 fast food franchises and are worth north of $50M. Something seemed off when I heard the story, and I didn't buy it. I figured Oher was doing something shady and was trying to extort money.

This part doesn't seem to persuade me. I only know a handful of rich people, and they rarely offer to pay for other people. There's two ways to accumulate a lot of money- maximize income and minimize expenses.

Also, didn't Oher make $34m in his career? What was the shady part? Having money doesn't mean that people can't take advantage of you.

Well, if you believe the reports of him trying to shake down the Touhys, I'd certainly call that behavior "shady"

I guess I don't know what to believe. I'm sure the answer is somewhere in the middle.

I thought the whole conservatorship/Ole Miss connection seemed shady. It also seems shady that Oher is asking for more money (if this is true) than was made from the film.

I'm just wondering how people are determining who to believe and for what purposes. I think people are likely to bring in their own biases to whatever new information they read. Thus, people will likely have strong opinions on things that we really don't know about.

[Roy H.]

I have questions about anybody who hires Marty Singer as an attorney, personally. 

[green_bballers13]

I just looked at Leigh Anne Touhy's website. I think I'm creeped out by her. She appears to be monetizing everything related to Michael Oher living in her house. Selling tee-shirts referencing her family, and even a unicorn bubble wand for $30 (what?!?). She seems shameless in her pursuit of money.

https://www.leighannetuohy.com/shop-2/

[Roy H.]

I'd be interested to see the financials of that charity.

Again, I'm not saying that Oher is entitled to millions of dollars.  There are few people more creative than Hollywood accountants, who can show that an amazingly successful movie didn't make any money. 

At the same time, the conservatorship, the inaccurate statements about adult adoption, the funneling of Oher to Mississippi for football, and then to a personal friend as Oher's agent, the profiting off of Oher's story and giving 80% of the profits to "the family" as opposed to the guy who became a success, hiring a big time Hollywood attorney whose billing is likely to exceed hundreds of thousands -- if not millions -- of dollars, etc. are at least yellow flags. 

It just presents a narrative of this being largely a one-way relationship.  If Oher made it big, they'd profit off him (way more than a $30 bubble wand).  If he became a failure, it was easy for them to cut ties with him, with absolutely no family relationship (despite public claims to the contrary).

[green_bballers13]

I'd be interested to see the financials of that charity.

Again, I'm not saying that Oher is entitled to millions of dollars.  There are few people more creative than Hollywood accountants, who can show that an amazingly successful movie didn't make any money. 

At the same time, the conservatorship, the inaccurate statements about adult adoption, the funneling of Oher to Mississippi for football, and then to a personal friend as Oher's agent, the profiting off of Oher's story and giving 80% of the profits to "the family" as opposed to the guy who became a success, hiring a big time Hollywood attorney whose billing is likely to exceed hundreds of thousands -- if not millions -- of dollars, etc. are at least yellow flags. 

It just presents a narrative of this being largely a one-way relationship.  If Oher made it big, they'd profit off him (way more than a $30 bubble wand).  If he became a failure, it was easy for them to cut ties with him, with absolutely no family relationship (despite public claims to the contrary).

I agree with all of this. That being said, I do think that they should be praised for helping a boy overcome the horrors of poverty. They definitely received this praise through the movie, book, and several public speaking engagements.

I'm concerned that people will start casting doubt on the motives of others that adopt children in need. At the end of the day, the Tuohy parents could be the biggest money grubbing weirdos in town. They still helped this young man when he needed it most. It's certainly a nuanced topic.

[Roy H.]

I'd be interested to see the financials of that charity.

Again, I'm not saying that Oher is entitled to millions of dollars.  There are few people more creative than Hollywood accountants, who can show that an amazingly successful movie didn't make any money. 

At the same time, the conservatorship, the inaccurate statements about adult adoption, the funneling of Oher to Mississippi for football, and then to a personal friend as Oher's agent, the profiting off of Oher's story and giving 80% of the profits to "the family" as opposed to the guy who became a success, hiring a big time Hollywood attorney whose billing is likely to exceed hundreds of thousands -- if not millions -- of dollars, etc. are at least yellow flags. 

It just presents a narrative of this being largely a one-way relationship.  If Oher made it big, they'd profit off him (way more than a $30 bubble wand).  If he became a failure, it was easy for them to cut ties with him, with absolutely no family relationship (despite public claims to the contrary).

I agree with all of this. That being said, I do think that they should be praised for helping a boy overcome the horrors of poverty. They definitely received this praise through the movie, book, and several public speaking engagements.

I'm concerned that people will start casting doubt on the motives of others that adopt children in need. At the end of the day, the Tuohy parents could be the biggest money grubbing weirdos in town. They still helped this young man when he needed it most. It's certainly a nuanced topic.

It is nuanced for sure.

Have they directly helped other kids?  There's a humanitarian narrative here, and a predatory one.  Im curious which is more accurate.

[Big333223]

I'd be interested to see the financials of that charity.

Again, I'm not saying that Oher is entitled to millions of dollars.  There are few people more creative than Hollywood accountants, who can show that an amazingly successful movie didn't make any money. 

At the same time, the conservatorship, the inaccurate statements about adult adoption, the funneling of Oher to Mississippi for football, and then to a personal friend as Oher's agent, the profiting off of Oher's story and giving 80% of the profits to "the family" as opposed to the guy who became a success, hiring a big time Hollywood attorney whose billing is likely to exceed hundreds of thousands -- if not millions -- of dollars, etc. are at least yellow flags. 

It just presents a narrative of this being largely a one-way relationship.  If Oher made it big, they'd profit off him (way more than a $30 bubble wand).  If he became a failure, it was easy for them to cut ties with him, with absolutely no family relationship (despite public claims to the contrary).

I agree with all of this. That being said, I do think that they should be praised for helping a boy overcome the horrors of poverty. They definitely received this praise through the movie, book, and several public speaking engagements.

I'm concerned that people will start casting doubt on the motives of others that adopt children in need. At the end of the day, the Tuohy parents could be the biggest money grubbing weirdos in town. They still helped this young man when he needed it most. It's certainly a nuanced topic.

It is nuanced for sure.

Have they directly helped other kids?  There's a humanitarian narrative here, and a predatory one.  Im curious which is more accurate.

This.

My recollection from the time the movie came out is that Oher was frustrated by the movie portraying him as a kind of dumb kid who had to be taught to play football when, in reality, he was already a rising star. According to his wikipedia page:

Oher was named Division II (2A) Lineman of the Year in 2003, and First-team Tennessee All-State.[2][4] Scout.com rated Oher a five-star recruit and the No. 5 offensive lineman prospect in the country.[5] Before that season and for his prior 20 months at Briarcrest, Oher had been living with several foster families. In 2004, Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy, a couple with a daughter and son attending Briarcrest, allowed Oher to live with them.

Sounds shady to me. Then there's the question of why the convervatorship is still in place today if it only happened because they wanted to get him into college. It all sounds shady.

But I do have a real question: Can someone explain to me why he would have to be under a conservatorship/be adopted to get in to Ole Miss?

[green_bballers13]

This does seem to be a little transactional. My thought is that top players like Oher have been receiving a lot of money from schools prior to the NIL changes. Maybe it was easier to get money to Oher through a family member than another booster?

[Moranis]

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/38204108/faq-sorting-blind-side-claims-oher-tuohys

The part that makes the family look really bad is all of the inconsistency regarding the payments for the movie.  And some of this inconsistency has been different statements in the last week. 

How much did the Tuohy family earn from the film?
According to the legal filing, the movie paid the Tuohys and their two birth children $225,000 each, plus 2.5% of the film's "defined net proceeds." Oher's petition says he received no money.

Sean Tuohy told The Memphian the family was not paid directly for the film.

"We didn't make any money off the movie," Tuohy told the publication. "Well, Michael Lewis gave us half of his share. Everybody in the family got an equal share, including Michael. It was about $14,000, each. We were never offered money; we never asked for money."

The Tuohys' book, on Page 244, says they were paid by Alcon Productions. Here's how they framed the payment:

Contrary to popular belief, the movie did not wildly enrich us. We had no participation in the profits; we only received a fee for selling our name rights to Alcon, which all in all was not a large amount. We divided it five ways.

In a statement Tuesday, a member of the Tuohys' legal team said the family "received a small advance from the production company and a tiny percentage of net profits. They insisted that any money received be divided equally. And they made good on that pledge."

In an interview with Barstool on Monday, the Tuohys' son SJ indicated the payments included what he called a "2½-percent kicker down the line."

"Again, that'll be public so someone that really cares to go back and read through it can do so," SJ Tuohy told Barstool. "And I bet though that we've probably, we as in me personally ... I've made like 60, 70 grand the course of the last four or five years. The first year was like a $14,000 check and then it was like an eight and seven, whatever, so on and so forth."

"But it started off a little higher and then it went down, which after it made hundreds of millions of dollars, I think someone said, 'OK, we can't hide this any longer.' The money he's suing for is actually the same thing. It'll be very well-documented."

Tuohy said it was "super-well-documented that [Oher] was in the middle of the plan" but "declined the exact money that I think is mentioned."

In his interview with the Post, Lewis said Twentieth Century Fox paid him $250,000 for the option to make his book a film, and he split that with the Tuohy family. Lewis told the Post he cleared $70,000 after taxes and agent fees. He said Alcon, which eventually made the film, paid him and the Tuohys each around $350,000 from the profits. He told the Post the family planned to share the money with Oher, but he declined his royalty checks. Lewis said he believed they deposited the money in a trust fund for Oher's son.

At a Wednesday news conference in Memphis, two lawyers for the Tuohy family said that, overall, each member of the family and Oher made about $100,000 from the movie.

"Imagine a pie, divided by five," Steve Farese said. "We estimate each person received $100,000."

Farese added that Oher's money was first paid to the Tuohys, who then gave Oher his portion. The lawyers said the arrangement allowed Oher to comply with NCAA rules. They added that Oher did not want to change how the money was distributed even when he went on to the NFL.

At the same news conference, the attorneys said the Tuohys would consent to ending the conservatorship.

[JSD]

Although it's accurate that Oher's father didn't acknowledge him, and his mother left him due to crack use, the true evil lies with the white family who provided him with a supportive environment that allowed him to thrive and eventually reach the NFL.

[celticsclay]

I think it is obviously easy to just assume the family that adopted him is lying, but I think it is possible they are telling the truth or this is more of a mixed bag. Oher definitely did not make as much as he had hoped in the nfl and his career ended very prematurely. He signed a 4 year 20 million deal with the titans but was cut after one year due to injuries. He then signed a two year 7 million contract with the panthers but then had to retire from injuries. He should have really been in his prime or tail end of his prime at this time (he was out of the league at like 31 it looks like. Offensive lineman can have pretty long careers. It certainly is possible he thought he had a lot more career earnings on the way. Then again it is entirely possible the family are just terrible people and took advantage of a kid. Guess we will maybe find out in court.