tv Blindsided CNN February 10, 2024 5:00pm-6:00pm PST
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[music playing] the baltimore ravens select michael oher, offensive tackle, mississippi. when the nfl draft came around in 2009, michael oher brought the tuohys to his introductory press conference and introduced them as kind of his parents, which he thought they were. they meant a lot to me. i don't think i'd be here without them. they showed me a lot of things. they taught me a lot. so i owe them everything. michael, do you want to introduce them? sure. you got my dad, sean tuohy, on the first row seat. mom, leigh anne tuohy, brother sean, and collins, older sis.
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there's always 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 truths in every story. if i looked at this story, i would say, it's about a young man who had his voice taken from him early on. do you have any place to stay tonight? don't you dare lie to me. the blind side told this story in a very boiled down way of michael oher, a young black kid coming from the projects of memphis, from a dysfunctional family, who is embraced and eventually adopted by this white family that's wealthy. they were kind of taking them like they were accepting him to be a part of this family. we're going to hold hands as a unit, we're going to pray together at dinner and kind of make it official. and they teach him what he needs to know academically and more importantly for the film about football. tony here's your quarterback, all right? you protect his blind side. when you look at him, you think of me, how you have my back,
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how you have his, ok? he was like, man, that movie, that movie-- it was more of a hurdle that he had to continuously jump every day. let me show you that i'm really not dumb. let me show you that i'm really not shy and timid. let me show you how i really am. and the older he got, the less comfortable he got with buying in and leaning in to a narrative. that just wasn't true from his perspective. and probably with the help of others, decided enough is enough. michael oher claims a key part of his life story was a lie. suing the family who said they adopted him. they blindsided him from the start. [siren wailing] [chatter] the blind side is the underdog hit of the film world this season.
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it's a hollywood script no one would believe if it weren't true. you could just see how well done it was going to be. and i think in our country about what family is, we don't take care of it enough. and i think we got to get back to that because i think we've unraveled ourselves a little bit. so you look at them and you go-- you feel guilty that you're not as good at it as they are. sandra bullock played leigh anne tuohy and tim mcgraw played sean tuohy. i played michael oher. the movie made a huge splash when it came out. the film, the blind side, has already taken in over $100 million in theaters. it took in nearly $300 million worldwide. it became, for america, a heartwarming tale of how our racial barriers have begun to collapse. there was certainly, i would say, a feeling that we had achieved sort of a post-racial society. congratulations, mr. president.
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[cheering] we had the first african-american president who was elected on the back of many white votes. and many americans felt like, gosh, finally, we're getting over this nightmare of race in america. are we post-racial? the politics of racial grievance die tonight. and the film played right into that because you have the tuohys, this white southern family, they live in memphis, the place where dr. king was assassinated. and they saw it fit in their hearts to embrace this hulking 6'5 300 pound man and officially made him part of their family. that's the story that america thought they were watching. the movie was everywhere, everywhere. the tuohys were everywhere. everyone wanted to have a piece of the tuohys story. we're joined now by the tuohy family live from their home in memphis, tennessee. that's leigh anne, sean who's a dead ringer for tim mcgraw, sean jr., they call him sj, and their beautiful
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daughter collins. and they go on good morning america, arguably the biggest morning audience that you can ever have. and to be on a platform that large really does put you in a stratosphere so different than others. sean and leigh anne, how true is this story to what really happened, leigh anne? i think it's pretty accurate. i mean, i don't have a big basis for a lot of other hollywood movies. but as far as this one goes, the blind side and with our family, i think they did a great job of keeping it authentic and accurate. they really did. sandra, sandra! lo and behold, it's not only a commercial hit, but it's considered an artistic hit. and the winner is sandra bullock in the blind side. being at the oscars, that itself was-- wow. when i saw sandra get the oscar, it was amazing. her speech was always uplifting, funny, and to the point.
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to the family that allowed me to play them, the tuohy family, i know they're in here and you'll probably hear her in a minute. so i would like to thank what this film was about for me, which are the moms that take care of the babies and the children no matter where they come from. when sandra bullock won the oscar, it legitimized the story. and leigh anne tuohy and her husband sean were the ambassadors of what it looks like to be kind and to be generous and to be christian. thank you for coming out. leigh anne tuohy and her husband sean became media darlings. the real leigh anne tuohy. leigh anne tuohy. leigh anne tuohy. this is leigh anne tuohy. leigh anne tuohy. leigh anne tuohy joins us now. leigh anne joins us this morning. nice to see you. leigh anne tuohy speaks from experience. she's the mother whose real life story of adoption was turned into the oscar winning movie the blind side. she became a star in her own right. i felt that it was odd. michael was not around for the promotion of the film. but his world wasn't movies and film and tv.
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his world was football. and so that was more important to him at the time. has he seen the movie yet or he's been too busy? he just had no time. i mean, he hadn't had no time. he's been busy. he's been very busy. also, i didn't think he wanted to be an advocate for something that he didn't feel portrayed him in a light he wanted to be in. i cannot deny the fact that michael oher has been outspoken about what he thought about the film early in his career. although he was very careful about how he criticized the film-- you've got, in an odd way, some celebrity status coming in even as a rookie. are you comfortable with that? i really don't see it like that. i mean, i feel like i'm just a regular person. when i interviewed michael during his rookie year and one of the things that he expressed to me was-- he was not ranting and raving-- i didn't like this, i hated it, i got a big problem.
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but it was that he was portrayed as unsophisticated, unschooled-- can we just go home and play some video games? look, everybody at wingate is expecting me to be a star football player. you don't want to let them down, do you? --and unable without the help of the tuohy family and his benign coaches to have made his way in the world. also, it wasn't his truth. it's not anything like reality. he says, if all about is what you saw in that movie, you don't know the real story at all. whatever you see in the movie or books you've read, you have to understand what it took for me to be this 18-year-old kid when this story started to take shape. the neighborhood we grew up in, we'll grab a ball
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and go anywhere. we shoot on a crate, basketball rim. anything we could put a circle in and put a ball through, we would play on it. our foster mother, ms. velma, she didn't push sports. like around our time of coming up, it was more education than anything. it was more so about look, if you don't get your education, you're not going to make it. when you speak ms. velma jones name, you're going to always find some sun at the end of the tunnel with it. when michael and his brother carlos came, they was real quiet, real respectful. being good kids, they wanted to learn. they paid attention and they didn't want to be excluded from activities. for anyone who's never been in foster care, the one thing you want is a family. to feel like i belong and you want me here. we were blessed to be around a parent that cared about us
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enough that whatever it was we wanted to do, she tried to have it for us, she provided for us. it's mine? yes, sir. what? never had one before. what, a room to yourself? a bed. that video is depicting something that didn't occur? no. part of the restriction to being in foster homes-- you had to have your own space. you didn't necessarily have to have your own room. but even though we were biological brothers, we still had to have our own beds. ok, i mean, when we were all growing up in foster care, none of us really sat around and discussed, hey, man, if i can have it my way, i'll go back home with my mom. oh, man, i would love to go back home with my dad. michael basically grasped the concept that everyone else grasps--
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this is not the end of your life. let this be a step towards the beginning of a new life. all the kids in the neighborhood played ball for me. and everybody came and let me know that mike was the new kid in the neighborhood. sports most kept him out of trouble. that's the other stuff going on inside the neighborhood. when i met mike, mike was kind of with me and stayed with me a whole lot, you know. and he was just like part of the family. he was like part of the family. this is my house right here. this is the house i built right here. mike was the first and only kid ever stayed with me. and when him and my son bonded, i mean, they were good friends.
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and they kind of kept mike out of problem a whole lot. he told me, don't leave him behind. i didn't leave them behind. i did what i had to do. that was tony's goal for mike was just to get him in a better school where they value academics and where they have great coaches that motivate you and push you and get the best out of you.
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of the track and living on the other side of the track. man, just driving up to the briarcrest campus, it's amazing. it's almost like you're going to a university. it's top tier, it's top of the line. it's just grand. the first time i met him, it was my sophomore year. he transferred in from another school. and with us being minorities, once you meet another guy that's african-american, you kind of gravitate towards each other. he was kind of a behind on his academics. so he had to get caught up to pace. after he got his feet on the ground, he took off, showing people that he could do the work and that he could do what it took to succeed. and how did the movie frame him?
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well, actually, i really never really saw the movie. i saw like bits and pieces. i went to the movies to see it and i walked out. can i show you a scene from the movie? yes. can i leave now? yeah. take your book. that's crazy. that's crazy. that's my first time seeing that. he would have never done anything like that. it's kind of embarrassing. and i'm embarrassed for him as a friend. it's not accurate and it's hurtful.
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he's very smart. he's capable, able to read, write. in the movie, it depicted a totally different person. he was charismatic. he was lovable. and sometimes, we would all come together and party together. the mike that i knew was outgoing, the jokester, the life of the room, just the type of guy that you wanted to be around. he eventually started spending the night at my house a couple of nights. it got to the point to where he was like, hey, man, think your dad would be all right with me moving in with y'all? i didn't feel obligation to do it at all.
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him and my son was friends. when someone asks you something that noble to come and live with you, that means they see something in you or they trust you and they believe in you. i never had a brother, like a brother my age. that was one of the best times of my life. do you have any place to stay tonight? don't you dare lie to me. yeah, i saw that scene before. it's kind of one of the famous scenes from the movie. he lived with me before he moved in with that family. he had a shelter. i've seen that look many times. she's about to get her way. you had people that loved him, people that was looking out for him, people that was taking care of him. the blind side movie never depicted anything we've done for mike.
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but it wasn't a big deal because it wasn't about me. it was about mike. but even by it being about mike, the truth should have been told. sometimes, hollywood takes certain creative liberties to tell a story in such a way that it can pique an audience. hi. at the time we were filming, i wasn't really thinking about how it was portraying michael. i didn't know him. all i had to go on was the script. see, you're the ketchup here at left tackle on the weak side. for instance, he didn't need to be taught how to play football. he already knew how to play. now see, this just means that you're going to block whoever's-- little sj, he's explaining it to him in such a way where it's like, bro, how do you not know this. like what are you-- seriously? what are you supposed to do? i'm sorry about the part that i played in adding to his discomfort and the role that he watched. me and michael were wanting to go get it. but in hollywood, you have to think about the audience that you want to shop and market this to.
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if that was me seeing me being portrayed like that, i'd be like, you know what, i need to talk to somebody because who told you i couldn't read, who told you i couldn't write, who told you i didn't know how to play football. 6 feet 5 inches, 350 pounds, runs a sub 5 flat. i've seen taller guys, but i haven't seen that many as muscular and wide as michael was at that stage. 18 years of age, he was phenomenal. [chatter] this is going to be a special year for this briercrest team. briercrest offensive line, they're led by a young guy named michael oher. he's one of the top prospects in the entire united states. michael oher is a man amongst little guys. he was fast, he was strong, he moved quick. knowing that that guy was on your team was a good feeling. look at the size difference you see.
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a great example of how big oher is. when you're an offensive lineman, to succeed, you got to be a little bit cerebral. and that's where michael comes in. he seemed to take naturally to the position. he dominated, and he dominated right away. he was known for his pancake blocks to where he was going to flatten you out. he gets it. oh, huge hold. and touchdown, briarcrest. the mack truck might have gone through that. getting to that championship was a fantastic feeling. michael oher was becoming a star. 80 of the top high school football players in the country. michael oher is 347 pounds offensive tackle and remarkably athletic. i got him on the us army all-america game, the prep football report all-american team, put him on everything. he was a consensus high school all-american.
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he's one of the top five offensive linemen nationally. here on this sideline, i've got 10 coaches. and sean tuohy ole miss basketball great, all kinds of competitive athletes here. sean tuohy was a volunteer football coach at briarcrest. and so that's how he got a chance to meet mike. he was one of the coaches that used to bring mike to my house after practice. and he said, we live way closer to the school and you can just spend the night with us. that's kind of how that relationship started. when michael was taken to the tuohys, michael didn't have much. and a lot was offered. i think for michael to accomplish some of his personal goals from #1 graduate from high school to maybe one day become a college athlete, there wasn't anyone better for michael to go in with than sean
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and leigh anne. the transition from mike living with me to living with them-- i spent a lot of time with the tuohys. they seem to be genuine people that cared about him, that cared about his success. i worked at chickasaw country club which the tuohys were members of. one day, i was working, and this big old person just comes up behind me and picks me up in the air. and i'm like, this guy is literally ragdolling me and it's michael oher. and i'm like, what's going on, brother. and he introduced me to the tuohys as his big brother. every time they would come to the club, hey, nate, how you doing, we want nate to come be a part of our party. i mean, it seemed to be all love. from what i saw, they were very nice people.
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the tuohys started calling them their son and a part of their family. i think that everyone thought that the tuohys had adopted michael. this is a passage from his first book. all right. "since i was already over the age of 18 and considered an adult by the state of tennessee, sean and leigh anne will be named as my legal conservators. they explained to me that it means pretty much the exact same thing as adoptive parents. honestly, i didn't care what it was called. i was just happy that no one could argue that we weren't legally what we already knew was real. we were a family."
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[chatter] saturdays in the south, in the fall, it doesn't get a whole lot better. just kind of picture in your mind two kids throwing the football around a college tailgate. that's where kids dream of one day playing college football. if you go around and ask many people around the south, what they think about the new york giants or the jets or nfl football, we don't care a hill of beans about it.
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we care about tennessee, we care about ole miss, mississippi state, arkansas, lsu, alabama. my junior year, going into my senior year-- here come the saints! --we all know who's getting offers from whom to go play college sports. and you hear about michael. and you hear about the volume of mail that he's getting. my god, man. when you seen the movie, it's true. all those coaches just about every big school in the country came to see this phenomenon. knoxville is a tremendous place-- phil fulmer of tennessee, houston nutt at arkansas-- there's only one razorback in the world. lou holtz at south carolina. --great in gamecock red. and then ed orgeron at ole miss. we walk it before every game, in front of thousands of people. it's a sacred ritual, and i'm in front.
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i can remember the rumor going around that a book was going to be written about michael's story at briarcrest. and so the buzz really started. michael lewis had a lot of standing within the book world. michael lewis helped spark a revolution in baseball with his best selling book, moneyball. and now he's setting his sights on the football world. [chatter] michael lewis says he got on to this story by visiting sean tuohy, an old high school friend of his. i spent a little time with you at your house. and my memory is that there was a 6 foot 5 inch 300 pounds black kid on your sofa. and i said, sean, who was he. and that was the very beginning of the blind side story, that you've taken him in because he didn't have a home. michael lewis's point in the blind side was that the left tackle was an overlooked position
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of importance. but that wouldn't be all that interesting unless you could attach a human story to it. and this was a legitimate true human story that was attached to it. [chatter] the last couple of years at briarcrest, he kind of filled that he had a chance that he can go to college and probably do something, to get his family together and build a house and bring his sister and brother and all them into one. so michael oher signed a letter of intent to go to ole miss in 2005. i believe it was in february. ole miss is where sean and leigh anne's story began. and welcome to memorial gymnasium starting at guard for the rebels, a 6'1, 180 pounds senior from new orleans, louisiana, number 12, sean tuohy! sean tuohys is alumni at ole miss, played basketball. this is sean tuohy from outside and that's what they're going
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to have to do to open up that zone. no question about it. leigh anne was a cheerleader. so it was one of those hollywood love stories where the star athletes with the cheerleader. when you've got a great game, you've got to have great cheerleaders. i got an ole miss and i got a bulldog. leigh anne roberts. go rebels! they were huge supporters of ole miss. boosters, major fans. the basketball center is named after him. so i mean, there was not a question in any person's mind where their loyalty lies. great ballplayers are worth their weight in gold. so i do think you get a michael oher, you bring him into the program, and the dollar signs they're just showing up everywhere. they've got about 30,000 of their following here. michael oher will watch him today on the defensive line. when you look at the idea that he went to ole miss,
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this is when we start to question ulterior motives. so the tuohys knew that they might be running afoul of ncaa rules if michael oher went to ole miss and knowing that they were boosters of the university of mississippi. the players, until recently, got nothing. and certainly in michael oher's day, anything that would be considered kind of a material gift to a potential athlete is a violation of the booster rules of the ncaa. so what they did was they sought to put michael into a conservatorship. and of course, they could have adopted him. michael oher was 18 years old at the time and adult adoption is a thing in tennessee. but they chose a conservatorship. this is when we ask ourselves-- something feels off here. it seems to me they didn't want to violate any ncaa rules, but they also knew that it was going to benefit them.
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him as well, but it would benefit them. i don't want to think or believe that michael was influenced one way or the other to go to ole miss. i think that it was his personal decision. i've grown another inch and a half. yeah, you have. in michael lewis's book, michael lewis mentions that sean tuohy always was like, i'm going to recuse myself from your decision-making. the tuohys have said, it was his decision. so how did you wind up at ole miss? ole miss was right down the road. it was a half hour down the road. and i figured it'd be easier for my family, friends, to get down to oxford to come see me play. were the tuohys deliberately steering a football powerhouse to their alma mater? no one has ever said that to my face. and if they did, i would tell them,
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don't let the door hit their butt on the way out. the tuohys ended up being investigated. the ncaa had questions about is this conservatorship legitimate. but the investigation turned up nothing. and michael oher was allowed to play for ole miss ultimately. he was immediately accepted as somebody that was going to be a star there. michael oher is a football phenom. a 6 foot 5 inch 325 pounds lightning fast force of nature. any kind of accolade you could win as a offensive tackle, he was killing by a landslide. michael oher is a guy that most people-- some people think he's the number one tackle in the country. i think-- he was a first round draft pick. although, he has said that he fell in the nfl draft because of unspecified character issues. this is a man that we've read about. and because of that read, he's the most overanalyzed player in this draft, probably to his detriment. michael oher had every expectation
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to maybe be a top 10 pick. but it's always the guy who drops in the draft who's the last person in the green room. i remember mom talking about talking to him during the draft. she said, michael wasn't happy with where he went, but she reminded him that god got you where you are. and just pray about it. it's ok. he's going to be ok. michael oher. on the phone. do you think they take him? yeah. they're a team that is big on value. and with the 23rd pick in the 2009 nfl draft, the baltimore ravens select michael oher, offensive tackle, mississippi. i know he was thinking about all the things that he could possibly be able to do for his family.
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he's got a lot of brothers and sisters he talks about all the time. he's always thinking about his family. he's always thinking about how he was raised, his upbringing. incidentally, just as michael oher was beginning his professional career and beginning to enjoy the fruits of all of his hard training and labor, the blind side movie came out. so much of his story to rookie status in the nfl, the number one movie in the country this past week. talk to the box office. yellow four. yellow what. [chatter] he never missed a game. he finished second in the rookie of the year balloting his first year in 2009. he was a starter on a team that went to and won the super bowl. just to see the excitement and the joy
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on his face overall just recognizing at the moment that everything is paid off like you're at the top of-- you're the top of sports really. this is the best feeling i've ever had. i can't even believe it right now. man, it's crazy. it's unbelievable. but a lot of the ballplayers don't last because of injuries. that's why it's called "not for long" league. nfl-- not for long.
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two leading candidates for senate. two very different visions for california. steve garvey, the leading republican, is too conservative for california. he voted for trump twice and supported republicans for years, including far right conservatives. adam schiff, the leading democrat, defended democracy against trump and the insurrectionists. he helped build affordable housing, lower drug costs, and bring good jobs back home. the choice is clear. i'm adam schiff, and i approve this message. growing up, my parents wanted me to become a doctor or an engineer. those are good careers! but i chose a different path. first, as mayor and then in the legislature. i enshrined abortion rights in our california constitution. in the face of trump, i strengthened hate crime laws and lowered the costs for the middle class. now i'm running to bring the fight to congress. you were always stubborn.
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and on that note, i'm evan low, and i approve this message. the essence of michael oher's nfl career is with the ravens where he was very good and his team was very good. but the movie followed him everywhere. there was no escaping the movie while he was in the nfl. there's no escaping it. despite another successful season, oher still hasn't and never will be able to separate himself from the movie that made over $309 million at the box office. injuries curtailed his career, which is a common story in the nfl. but michael oher eight years. so he had a great career. it ended abruptly when he had a severe concussion. leaving football no matter whether it's because of injury
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or you choose to leave, it's a transition, a metamorphosis. and it's painful and uncomfortable. i do know he started to question if things were like 100% authentic with the tuohys. i feel like the toys knew that michael really didn't like the movie from the very beginning. he has said that he wants to take control of his own life. and i think that's something that you can kind of trace looking all the way back to 2011 with him. no, i just want to send the message out that you don't have to be saved by a wealthy white family. you could take that thread to today. being portrayed not being able to read or write, when you go into a locker room and your teammates don't think that you can learn a playbook, that weighs heavy. and it wasn't that you don't have gratitude to the family that took you in. that's really--
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very grateful. very grateful for every family that helped me throughout this journey. there's a lot of people that deserve a lot of credit. controversy surrounding the hit movie, the blind side. michael oher blindsided, he says, by his family at the center of the hollywood blockbuster. alleging they earned millions from pushing a false narrative that they adopted him. he hired lawyers to look into this and it took years of unravel. but then in early 2023, michael oher's lawyers say they dug up the conservatorship agreement. oher states in a new petition that sean and leigh anne tuohy told him they were going to adopt him, but never did. or says they instead filed a conservatorship that made millions for them and their children. a conservatorship definitely does not make you part of a family. it is an arrangement that the court has granted in order to take rights away from an individual and give those rights to someone else.
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michael oher alleges that the tuohys negotiated a deal for themselves when the blind side movie came out. and he says that the family didn't give him any of this money. the family says, no, all the money we made off of this movie, we shared it equally with michael oher. they've never needed his money. mr. tuohy sold his company for $220 million. the movie allowed them to basically create a narrative around their family. the movie's great. we love it. it allows us to go around and talk about the michael ohers of the world that need a forever family. they say that all families don't have to look the same, which is sort of an implicit reference to the fact that michael is black and that they are white. and we need to realize that families don't have to match and it's not about genetics. michael oher alleges in his petition that the tuohys used his name to promote leigh anne tuohy's speaking engagements. she's one of the country's most sought-after motivational speaker.
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glad to be here. glad to be home in memphis where people talk like me and sound like me. gosh, it's good. the tuohys have always represented themselves as michael's parents, as his adoptive parents. do you look at him and think of him as your son? he thinks i birthed him. it's gotten to the point where i think i birthed him. he takes great offense if people don't think that he's a part of the family. we didn't go out to adopt. we get a lot of credit for that, which is great. keep giving us that. but really, we feel-- and it's the only explanation that makes any sense is we feel michael was sent to us. three weeks ago, we found out that national adoption day is november 20, the day the movie opens. another coincidence. is it a coincidence? i don't think so. you can always see the picture clearer when you look back. this whole thing is a story on adoption of michael oher and how it changed our life and how we helped change his life. but it was never an adoption. so the tuohys, they've admitted that they never adopted him,
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that they never intended to adopt him legally. they said that they never intended to adopt michael? that really is contrary to what has been voiced during the last 20 years. and if that is what their lawyer said in their response, i think that, as they say in the south, they got some splaining to do. the tuohys have countered that michael oher knew about the conservatorship. now what is meant by “knows” is sort of an interesting question. the average individual does not know what a conservatorship is. and there are many lawyers who have no idea what conservatorships are. everyone that heard of the conservatorship, they immediately went to google to find out what is this
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and what does it mean. it's britney, bitch. britney spears's 13 year conservatorship has come to an end. we feel that today was a big step, shining a light on larger issues nationally in terms of conservatorships. i know what a conservatorship is now thanks to britney spears. so to hear that something like that had gone on, it struck some nerves. that's probably the first time that he had heard of someone having a conservatorship outside of himself. i think it's 100% possible that the tuohys didn't mean any harm by setting up a conservatorship. the ncaa has all these nettlesome rules that they had to navigate and conservatorship became the vehicle for sort of flying above the rules, if you will. the only way, the only way, given the ncaa rules at the time back in 2005, that he could sign with ole miss is
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he became, according to the ncaa, as part of the family. once it got rolling and they told people that they had adopted him, you can't turn back and say, hey, i lied. i didn't adopt him. we did a conservatorship. we just did this so he could go to ole miss. he's not really part of our family. growing up in foster care, to hear someone say adopted, that's like the greatest feeling in the world when you feel like you have nobody. and to hear people who you felt like had your best interest say, we never intended to, in my opinion, that's betrayal.
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3, 2-- the conservatorship over michael oher is officially terminated. that was the decision handed down today by judge kathleen gomez in shelby county probate court. but she made it clear the case is far from over. the judge granted the wishes of both sides and ended the conservatorship. and she says, she's never seen, in all the years on the bench, a conservatorship set up in a case where someone wasn't incapacitated. one big thing that i find unusual is that the judge mentioned in the order granting the conservatorship that michael had no mental or physical incapacities. he was a normal functioning 18-year-old adult. if there was an order that specifically stated there was no disability or no incapacity or something of that nature, then that would raise an eyebrow as to the necessity of the conservatorship because that's what's required.
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i do believe that a system who saw a poor black kid and a rich white family agreed with the fact that he couldn't take care of himself. the optics suggest, shut up and dribble, and you need all the help you can get. and of course, like all things, it ends bad with money. you're rolling sound? mr. randall. mr. randall, this is cnn. do you have any further comment on the allegations that the tuohys enriched themselves-- everything that has been said about this is already in the record. i got nothing further to add at this point. i think that's a big question like what happened to the money, how much money was it, and who's telling the truth about the money.
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it is very typical in conservatorships for a final accounting to be filed if a conservatorship is terminated-- this is how much money we've spent, this is where we are, this is where the money has been invested, these are the assets that person has. in my mind, michael's petition has to do with what's the truth of this relationship i had with the tuohys. i believe the tuohys, michael oher, they wanted to do something good. but when it ended, i think they are asking each other the same questions-- was any of it real, are you really who i thought you were, did you ever love me.
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as a child, you have no say so over what's going on in your life. but you can move on and grow from it. and i think that's what his story is-- him basically wanting to verbalize where he come from, what he possessed, and what he had to offer. michael was trying to clear michael oher from the misconceptions. and michael oher wants to be able to walk away with his head up, knowing that he did the right thing. [music playing]
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