NBC: ‘The Blind Side' subject Michael Oher says adoption by Tuohy family was a lie and he was cut out of money from movie

[PleaseBlitz]

2 minutes ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

 

But, I'm curious of the mechanics of it. Did they say to him "They're making a movie about us and we'll make sure you're taken care of" and then not take care of him? Or did they say to him "They're making a movie about us, make sure your agent covers you" and he didn't have his agent (remember, it came out after he was an NFL player) negotiate for royalties? 

 

It's more a curiosity of HOW he was left out of the pay day. 

 

Oher turned 18 in 2004.  The book was published in 2006, which means the Tuohys knew that Oher's life story was going to be valuable in 2004 because books take a long time to get from initial research to being published.  Shortly after he turned 18, according to Oher, they told him they were going to adopt him, but actually had him sign papers making them his conservator (meaning, they tricked him), which gave them near-complete control over his finances and the legal authority to make business deals in his name (but not necessarily to his benefit (i.e., Free Britney)).  Everything that happened after 2004 that wasn't his NFL income, the Tuohey's controlled and, according to Oher, they kept all the money and he got nothing. It's not clear if Oher had an agent, I assume he did, but why would an NFL agent dig into Oher's personal family dealings if Oher never knew something was amiss?

[Xameil]

2 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

but why would an NFL agent dig into Oher's personal family dealings if Oher never knew something was amiss?

Because thats part of an agents job? An agent would get a cut of that too, so Im sure good agents know almost everything about a client. 

[PleaseBlitz]

8 minutes ago, Xameil said:

Because thats part of an agents job? An agent would get a cut of that too, so Im sure good agents know almost everything about a client. 

 

Is it?  To look into his client's personal **** when the client has no idea that there is anything to look into?  

[TD_washingtonredskins]

9 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

Oher turned 18 in 2004.  The book was published in 2006, which means the Tuohys knew that Oher's life story was going to be valuable in 2004 because books take a long time to get from initial research to being published.  Shortly after he turned 18, according to Oher, they told him they were going to adopt him, but actually had him sign papers making them his conservator (meaning, they tricked him), which gave them near-complete control over his finances and the legal authority to make business deals in his name (but not necessarily to his benefit (i.e., Free Britney)).  Everything that happened after 2004 that wasn't his NFL income, the Tuohey's controlled and, according to Oher, they kept all the money and he got nothing. It's not clear if Oher had an agent, I assume he did, but why would an NFL agent dig into Oher's personal family dealings if Oher never knew something was amiss?

 

I'm not sure, but I would think if a movie starring A-list celebrities about my client and his journey to the NFL was coming out, I'd be digging into the details to see how it was going to benefit him. An agent's job (I think) is all the financial dealings, not just the NFL contract. 

 

Anyway, I'm not in any way saying the family wasn't being shiesty. Clearly something was up. What I'm curious about is how it all went down. I'd like to know if they just completely tried to trick him or if they left a represented adult to handle his own business and take his piece of the pie (something Oher and his agent screwed up). 

[PleaseBlitz]

Oher's agent was Jimmy Sexton, who's a pretty high-caliber agent.  I expect more details will come out soon. Right now we just have the lawsuit filed by Oher (which is going to be very favorable to Oher) and the Tuohey's weird retort that they are being "shaken down."

[Xameil]

6 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

Is it?  To look into his client's personal **** when the client has no idea that there is anything to look into?  

If I was an agent, I would. Find what other potential income streams there are, any potential character issues with player or family so I know exactly what potential landmines there are.

 

[NickyJ]

A squabble between a rich person and a rich family. I'll wait for a while before I decide which millionaires are in the right.

[PleaseBlitz]

22 minutes ago, Xameil said:

If I was an agent, I would. Find what other potential income streams there are, any potential character issues with player or family so I know exactly what potential landmines there are.

 

 

Yea, I mean, the more I think about it, that makes sense.  There is this extremely obvious asset out there (the book and the movie, but moreso the movie) that are about my client's life story, I'd want to know where the money is going and how much of it my client is getting.  I'm speculating, but that should have led to discovering the non-adoption/conservatorship situation.  That is all dependent on IF the scope of my engagement with my client includes that kind of thing.  I don't actually have any idea what the scope of a standard NFL agent representation is, or if Oher had a standard one or a bespoke agreement.  If it was within the scope of Oher's agreement with Sexton, and Sexton failed to look into it, then Oher should sue the **** out of Sexton too.  

[TD_washingtonredskins]

23 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

Yea, I mean, the more I think about it, that makes sense.  There is this extremely obvious asset out there (the book and the movie, but moreso the movie) that are about my client's life story, I'd want to know where the money is going and how much of it my client is getting.  I'm speculating, but that should have led to discovering the non-adoption/conservatorship situation.  That is all dependent on IF the scope of my engagement with my client includes that kind of thing.  I don't actually have any idea what the scope of a standard NFL agent representation is, or if Oher had a standard one or a bespoke agreement.  If it was within the scope of Oher's agreement with Sexton, and Sexton failed to look into it, then Oher should sue the **** out of Sexton too.  

 

Yeah, I'm looking at both Sexton and Oher on this. Assuming the arrangement above, we have to imagine that Sexton pressed Oher on the movie rights, etc. He's an agent and those guys are blood-sucking vampires who see their cut. What I could have seen happening because Oher was making his NFL millions is that he told Sexton to stand down or leave it alone (either believing that he was already taken care of my his "adopted" parents or because he was already sick of dealing with them). 

[PleaseBlitz]

My most likely scenario is that Oher hired Sexton so that Oher doesn't have to worry about **** like this.  Oher doesn't want to worry about his money, he wants to worry about his NFL career.  He also doesn't need to immediately sweat the Blind Side money because he's otherwise making good money, including a $14MM rookie deal, then a 4 yr $20MM deal.

 

Not really digging the blame the victim stances being taken in this thread, TBH. 

[TD_washingtonredskins]

5 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

My most likely scenario is that Oher hired Sexton so that Oher doesn't have to worry about **** like this.  Oher doesn't want to worry about his money, he wants to worry about his NFL career.  He also doesn't need to immediately sweat the Blind Side money because he's otherwise making good money, including a $14MM rookie deal, then a 4 yr $20MM deal.

 

Not really digging the blame the victim stances being taken in this thread, TBH. 

 

At this point, we have two very wealthy/famous parties bickering about something. I'm not even sure who the victim is yet. I'm just lobbing out potential ways that this thing could have happened because I'm a little intrigued having seen the movie a couple times. 

[youngestson]

Likely an unpopular opinion, but I thought the movie was crap and Sandra Bullock's character was remarkably unlikeable. 

[PleaseBlitz]

The book was awesome, but the book was like 30% Michael Oher and 70% how LT snapping Joey T’s leg forever changed the game of football and particularly the economics of NFL contracts. 

 

In a nutshell:  The QB is BY FAR the most important position, so you pay that guy by far the most.  The next two most valuable positions are (1) the guy who is good at destroying the QB and (2) the guy who stops the guy who is good at destroying the QB.  

Edited August 16, 2023 by PleaseBlitz

[Corcaigh]

The book and the movie were all about the Tuohy's telling their story. Michael Lewis, the author, was a college classmate of Sean Tuohy and that's why it's from their perspective - it fits their narrative. If Oher wasn't involved in the book/movie project it's understandable why he wasn't paid for it.

 

But no doubt, Leigh Anne Tuohy has made her name and promoted her charity around their relationship with Oher, but I don't know what his rights are to stop her from exploiting the story.

1 minute ago, PleaseBlitz said:

The book was awesome, but the book was like 30% Michael Oher and 70% how LT snapping Joey T’s leg forever changed the game of football and particularly the economics of NFL contracts. 

 

Yeah - many book reviewers complain that it's nothing like the move and has way too much football.

[HOF44]

Apparently they received a percentage of net, not gross. Lucky they got anything with the way Hollywood works those numbers. 
 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/08/16/michael-lewis-blind-side-lawsuit/?fbclid=IwAR0FiMxZMWtzbQMKmIXN-3UBBUtN7x-Lc3ycfia-ouIEl-tjQ1QNhP9ghCI_aem_AQ97ycXI6rR9xvRhnCepdSbmKYuZKxHSGwj93s7V2B5LDUgXhlwT1OZ1_uJqg0ZhZy0

 

According to Lewis, the film made around half a billion dollars but the equity stake in the movie was not as lucrative as it would appear. In fact, he said, he had called his own representatives at Creative Artists Agency over the years, following the movie’s success, asking about his share of the profits.

Lewis said that ultimately after agent fees and taxes, he and the Tuohy family received around $350,000 each from the profits of the movie. Lewis said the Tuohys planned to share the royalties among the family members, including Oher, but Oher began declining his royalty checks, Lewis said. Lewis said he believed that the Tuohy family had deposited Oher’s share in a trust fund for Oher’s son.

Edited August 16, 2023 by HOF44

[tshile]

14 hours ago, PleaseBlitz said:

If true, man.  Doesn't get much lower than people who are already rich exploiting an underprivileged child, under the guise of adopting him, in order to steal his life story and make a bunch of money off it. 

I’m quoting this because this is how I actually feel. I’m reserving judgement but generally you consider ‘what if the allegations are true’ and that would be just so awful. 
 

also - on the movie. I liked it. **** you guys.

 

but. I can’t help but think… and I’m not trying to be a dick. But the argument for him seems to be:
- he was portrayed as stupid but he’s actually really smart. The portrayal of him as stupid hurt his career earnings/livelihood 
- his complaint is he thought he was signing adoption papers but he signed a conservatorship

 

So. Like. If he was so smart how did he not know what he was signing?

 

… didn’t it say conservatorship?

 

Did you not scan the document just looking for the word “adoption” somewhere?

 

the only caveat to that, and @PleaseBlitzalso said it,  there’s an issue that they were raising him and took him in as a child. There’s a reason there’s laws about what you can do when that’s the relationship, even once the child becomes an adult. An analogy, and I don’t know if every state does this but I know the civilized ones do: a teacher cannot have a sexual relationship with a former student once they turn 18 and graduate. Having that preexisting relationship makes it illegal because of the potential influence allowed by that power dynamic.

 

So. If that’s their argument. Ok. still don’t understand how a smart person doesn’t understand their adoption papers never mention the word adoption…

[TheGreatBuzz]

3 minutes ago, tshile said:

Ok. still don’t understand how a smart person doesn’t understand their adoption papers never mention the word adoption…

 

As someone who remembers signing their own adoption paperwork, the idea that you don't look it over is just unbelievable.  Not because you want to make sure it is right but because you are so full of joy and want to take it all in.

[tshile]

Honestly their case would make more sense if it was something like:

 

he wasn’t smart. He was street smart in the child survives homelessness kinda way. But he was otherwise way undereducated. They knew that. They sold the story of that. And that’s why they knew they could trick him into signing a conservatorship by telling him it was adoption paperwork. 
 

🤷‍♂️ 

[The Evil Genius]

Again, he was already rated a 5 star high school OL per Scout before the Tuohy's even came into his life (he was 17 at the time).

 

But the movie makes him football dumb before meeting them. 

 

The entire movie story was bull****. 

 

 

Edited August 17, 2023 by The Evil Genius

[TD_washingtonredskins]

9 hours ago, The Evil Genius said:

Again, he was already rated a 5 star high school OL per Scout before the Tuohy's even came into his life (he was 17 at the time).

 

But the movie makes him football dumb before meeting them. 

 

The entire movie story was bull****. 

 

 

 

Yeah, I mean, it was a movie so it had to be Hollywoodized a little bit. Remember the Titans did that too. They made 1971 Alexandria, VA seem like the Jim Crow Deep South. 

[PokerPacker]

12 minutes ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

 

Yeah, I mean, it was a movie so it had to be Hollywoodized a little bit. Remember the Titans did that too. They made 1971 Alexandria, VA seem like the Jim Crow Deep South. 

Also they made the Titans seem like underdogs scraping by and dealing with racist refs trying to ruin them.  In reality, they were an ultra-dominant team featuring three schools' worth of talent and easily mopped the floor with their competition.  Also made the coach out to be some inspirational figure and not the piece-of-**** asshole he apparently was in real life.

 

Here's the question, though.  Are these movies "Hollywoodized a little bit", or are they Hollywood movies with small traces of inspiration from real events that they sell to audiences as true stories?

Edited August 17, 2023 by PokerPacker

[PleaseBlitz]

16 minutes ago, PokerPacker said:

Here's the question, though.  Are these movies "Hollywoodized a little bit", or are they Hollywood movies with small traces of inspiration from real events that they sell to audiences as true stories?

 

Large traces of inspiration from real events, but those events are entirely conformed to the Hollywood playbook:  Scrappy underdog but with a conventionally attractive hero, seemingly insurmountable obstacles/drama, climactic final hurdle with additional insurmountable obstacles/drama, victory, conclusion.  If any of those things are absent from the real story, they will be added. 

[DCSaints_fan]

8 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

Large traces of inspiration from real events, but those events are entirely conformed to the Hollywood playbook:  Scrappy underdog but with a conventionally attractive hero, seemingly insurmountable obstacles/drama, climactic final hurdle with additional insurmountable obstacles/drama, victory, conclusion.  If any of those things are absent from the real story, they will be added. 

So I guess they need to make a new movie with the Tuohys as villains ...

[PleaseBlitz]

2 minutes ago, DCSaints_fan said:

So I guess they need to make a new movie with the Tuohys as villains ...

Possibly a sequel to The Purge. 💀

[PokerPacker]

40 minutes ago, DCSaints_fan said:

So I guess they need to make a new movie with the Tuohys as villains ...

Get Jordan Peele to make a horror movie out of it.