Truth Behind 'The Blind Side': Michael Oher's Allegations

to various interviews from yesterday. But the ESPN report comes out yesterday that Michael Orr, Memphis native, and also the subject of the movie, The Blind Side, that focused on the Tui family and their role in his life and taking him in and getting him to Ole Miss. And it's the movie that earned Sandra Bullock an Oscar, came out in 2009. It was nominated for Best Picture itself. But Orr petitioned a Tennessee court yesterday that one of the biggest parts of that movie, the notion that he was adopted, is actually a lie. And in that 14-page petition, it alleges that Sean and Leigh-Anne Tui never actually adopted him. Instead, in his words, they tricked him into signing a conservatorship, which gave them legal authority to make business deals under his name that the family essentially enriched themselves at Michael Orr's expense. And the report says that Michael found this out in February of this past year. So when there's some notion of why now, a part of it was that it came to a crescendo when he had hired legal representation to dig into the earnings from the movie and the part of the Tui family, and they discovered that he signed a conservatorship. And there is proof of this in 2004 in Shelby County Court that the Tui's filed and got a conservatorship for Michael Orr three months after he turned 18. And conservatorships became such a part of the lexicon this past year, these past years, with Britney Spears and this notion of conservatorships not providing family relationships, but business handlings and legal handlings. And they often involve a power dynamic where one side makes financial decisions for another. And in this case, it was the financial decisions of business deals regarding the movie. And Orr says that he received no payments for the movie, The Blind Side, a movie about his life without Michael Orr. There is no story of The Blind Side. And according to the legal filing, according to the legal filing, the movie paid the Tui's and their birth children, Collins and SJ, $225,000 each, plus 2.5% of the film's defined net proceeds. The Tui's have always said that they were not personally paid for the movie. And any money that they did get was split equally five ways between the five of them, including Michael Orr. The petition also accuses the Tui's of using that power to make sure themselves and their children earned millions in continuing royalties and that the family has used the notion of his adoption to build their public image. And Lanz works specifically as an author and a motivational speaker. Now, with the ESPN report, the Tui's did not return their calls, according to the report. That said, Sean Tui spoke to Jeff Calkins over at the Daily Memphian. He said that the conservatorship was a way to convince the NCAA that Orr could play football at Ole Miss because there were some murky waters there, being that Sean Tui played basketball at Ole Miss, was an Ole Miss donor, were living in the booster times there. He also said that the family would be willing to end the conservatorship. He claimed that the family didn't make any money off the movie. They made money off the author of the book, Michael Lewis, esteemed journalist, author. He did Moneyball, he did The Big Short, and he did The Blind Side. He also happens to be a former classmate and friend of Sean Tui. And allegedly they got a sum of money that was doled out to about $14,000 per person. SJ Tui, the son, went on the Barstool radio podcast yesterday and said that he got something closer to 60 to 70,000. So there's some discrepancies to figure out there. As always.