Source: Icon Sports Wire / Getty
, a retired NFL player who had the movie
Blind Side based on his life, is stepping forward with claims that a central piece of that story is a lie.
In the film, Oher, who is Black, is portrayed as a big-time football player stuck in a poverty-stricken situation until his white adoptive parents – Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy – took him in. However, Oher is now stating that he was never officially adopted. Instead, he claims to have been misled, and states in a petition that he was tricked into signing a document that made the Tuohys his conservator, giving them rights to make business decisions on his behalf.
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Oher claims that he was cheated out of his share of millions of dollars in royalties after
Blind Side earned more than $300 million at the box office and was nominated for several awards. Oher has now petitioned the Tennesse court that granted the conservatorship for, among other things, his share of the earnings.
The Tuohys have yet to make a public statement.
From
ESPN:
But there are some important legal distinctions. If Oher had been adopted by the Tuohys, he would have been a legal member of their family, and he would have retained power to handle his own financial affairs. Under the conservatorship, Oher surrendered that authority to the Tuohys, even though he was a legal adult with no known physical or psychological disabilities.
To read the entire ESPN article, [
click here].
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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