The Journal. - The Other Side of 'The Blind Side'

Episode Date: August 23, 2023

“The Blind Side” is an Oscar-winning movie about a wealthy family that adopts an underprivileged kid and helps him achieve his dreams. But now that narrative is being questioned. Michael Oher, the retired NFL player whose life the movie is based on, has filed a petition with a Tennessee court that alleges he was never adopted by the Tuohy family and that they made millions off his story. WSJ’s Andrew Beaton on the two sides of ‘The Blind Side’. Further Reading: -‘Blind Side’ Subject Says Family Lied About His Adoption and Made Millions Off Him  -‘Blind Side’ Family Calls Former NFL Player’s Claims a ‘Shakedown’  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Did you watch The Blind Side when it came out in 2009? I did, though I read the book before that, too. Our colleague Andrew Beaton covers the NFL. But today, we're talking less about football, the sport, and more about a football movie, The Blind Side. You know, it was a story that was really easy to be swept up in. You have this kind of remarkable tale about somebody who had really fallen through the cracks and this family swoops in and gives him not just a life, but helps him fully realize his potential in terms of they weren't just helping anybody. They were helping somebody who is one of the top football prospects

in the entire country. The Blind Side is about the life of Michael Orr, a black football player who grew up in Memphis. According to the movie and the book it was based on, Orr was adopted when he was a teenager by a wealthy white family, the Toohey's. When the movie was released in 2009, it captivated audiences and critics. The Blind Side, the movie Movie was a fantastic hit.

Absolute blockbuster in terms of awards, in terms of money. This is something that, since it's come out, has made over $300 million. And Sandra Bullock portrayed Leanne Toohey, the mother, and she won an Oscar for it. 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. This was a huge, huge film.

It was a cultural phenomenon. But now, more than a decade later, Michael Orr says the Toohey family lied about his adoption and made millions off his story. Accusations that a lawyer for the family has called ridiculous and offensive. We've all been kind of enamored with this fairy tale ever since the book and the movie came out. And this really detonated that fairy tale. And this really detonated that fairy tale.

And so now we're at a point where we're trying to understand how did this fracture, when did this fracture, and was this fairy tale ever actually true? Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Wednesday, August 23rd. Coming up on the show, revisiting the blind side. At AirMiles, we help you collect more moments. So instead of scrolling through photos of friends on social media, you can spend more time dinnering with them. Mmm, how's that spicy enchilada? Oh, very flavorful.

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Michael Orr had a tough childhood. In interviews and in his own memoir, Orr has talked about growing up in Tennessee, in an environment where drugs and violence were common. You know, I knew in order for me to get to the NBA and NFL and seeing these guys on TV, I knew I couldn't be a part of the gangs, the violence, and drugs, so I had to stay away from those.

It was hard. Yeah, I saw these things every day. Michael Orr was born into poverty and then was someone who was really subject to the system in the state where he bounced around between foster homes. He was homeless. He didn't necessarily know from one night to the next where he would be sleeping or if he would have a bed. One of the iconic moments from the movie is when Michael Orr says something to the effect of, It's mine? Yes, sir. What?

Never had one before. Want a room to yourself? A bed. That's sort of emblematic of the life he lived before this family took him in. Orr began living with the Toohey family when he was in high school. The parents, Sean and Leanne, were in the restaurant business. Leanne was also an interior designer. At the time, the Toohey's two children went to the same school as Orr.

Michael met the Toohey's the same way he met other families. You know, I think the parents were involved at the school. They had kids who went there. And he had spent time couch surfing on the beds or couches of classmates. And the Toohey's were one of those families eventually. And then they became his permanent home for the rest of high school. What was life like for Orr living with the Tooheys? I mean, it was definitely a life he was completely unaccustomed to in some ways

because the Tooheys were extremely wealthy and he has a couple kids who start to feel like siblings to him, according to the book in the movie. And so at the same moment that he is moving in with this family is the same moment that he gets identified as one of the top prospects in the entire country for college football. Orr played the position of left tackle and was a star on the field. He was really tall.

He'd eventually top out at 6'4". And this gave him an advantage over some of the other kids. As the movie shows, Orr caught the eye of several universities when he was about to graduate from high school. I guarantee you come to the University of South Carolina, it'll be the smartest decision you've ever made. We want you, we need you, but the other thing is, Mike, you need us. And what that means is college coaches around the country blowing up your phone when they're allowed to, attending your practices, having meetings with

you, flying you onto campus, and basically doing everything to woo you short of paying you fat stacks of money because they weren't allowed to do that back then. And at the time, what was Michael's legal relationship with the Toohey's? At the time, there was absolutely no Ole Miss, they decided to change that. We'd like to become your legal guardians. What's that mean? What it means is, is that we want to know if you would like to become part of this family. Both Sean and Leanne Toohey had attended the University of Mississippi, Ole Miss.

Leanne had been a cheerleader, and Sean had played basketball for the school. After they graduated, the Tooheys became boosters, financially supporting the university's athletics department. And because of that, when Orr decided to play for Ole Miss,

the question of whether he should join the family came up. According to the narrative portrayed in the book, they definitely viewed him as part of the family. But also, for him to attend Ole Miss, it's stated rather explicitly in the book that for it to not raise questions with the NCAA that bringing him into the family was important if he chose to attend Ole Miss.

Because especially back in those days, the rules have changed. But back in those days, the rules were strict and clear, which is that boosters for a school couldn't give any money to induce a prospect to attend that school. They couldn't give him shoes. They couldn't give him a car. They couldn't give him a home to sleep in. I mean, there were other colleges recruiting him,

and he could have chosen to play elsewhere. But if he did ultimately play at Ole Miss, their alma mater, then it was something that they thought they would have to address. And the public narrative for every moment since then has been that the family adopted him. And there was no real reason to question that. If you go to Leanne Toohey's website, it refers to Michael Orr as the adopted son.

If you read their book or check out interviews, by all accounts, Michael Orr was adopted by this family. This is the story that was captured in the 2006 book The Blind Side from best-selling author Michael Lewis. A few years later, the book was adapted into the award-winning movie. The film made hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office and turned Orr into a household name. Why do you think the movie resonated so strongly with audiences at the time? This was 2009. This is 2009, and I think it felt like a feel-good story to everybody.

Someone whose society had seemingly failed receives the generosity of a family to fully realize his potential. It just seems to be a heartwarming story all around in that he becomes a success. The family does a good thing. They're not just helping someone, but they're helping him realize his potential. And so I think it felt good to everybody, even if it fell back on some classic tropes. Say more about those tropes. The narrative is one that we've seen pop up in a lot of uncomfortable areas in pop culture over the years, which is it is a rich white family or person helping out a poor person of color. Did that come up in conversation or discussions at the time?

I'm sure it did. But the idea of this being the white savior wasn't the huge narrative around the movie at the time or the book. You know, there was talks about football, there was talk about the family, but it wasn't the prevailing narrative. There was some criticism of the movie. Orr himself has talked publicly about the way he was represented in it. I don't think Michael has made it secret over the years that he didn't love his portrayal in the movie. And if you were Michael Orr, I think that's pretty understandable. If you watch the movie, he's not portrayed as the brightest guy. He is slow moving. He seems a little slow to think in

the movie. And so I could see why if you're that person, you don't love that the way the world thinks of you is how he was portrayed in that movie. Here's Orr on a CBS sports podcast. I think the biggest for me is, you know, being portrayed, not being able to read or write. Second grade, I was doing plays in front of the school. And I think that's one of the, when you go into a locker room and your teammates don't think you can learn a playbook, you know, that weighs heavy. Still, for over a decade, the movie and the conversation around Michael Orr and the Tooheys have remained mostly positive. When I showed up to the office last week, I was certainly not expecting Michael Orr's name to be in the news.

Everything about Michael Orr seemed to have been told. Everything about the narrative seemed to be hunky-dory and no reason to really think about it once or even twice. But earlier this month, Orr filed a petition with a Tennessee court that would upend a lot of what we thought we knew about the story. That's after the break. Need a great reason to get up in the morning? Well, what about two? Right now, get a small organic fair trade coffee and a tasty bacon and egg or breakfast sandwich for only $5 at A&W's in Ontario.

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Visit amex.ca slash yamx. Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. After the blindside came out and Orr graduated from Ole Miss, he went on to play for the NFL, where he made over $30 million and even won a Super Bowl. The Super Bowl for Lawrence to Baltimore. He definitely had a good NFL career that lasted a while,

and most NFL players would be thrilled to play as long and be as successful as he was. Orr retired from the league in 2016 after suffering a head injury. And where were the Toohey's throughout his time in professional football? Especially at the beginning, they were definitely visible presences. You can look up pictures and find the Toohey family with Michael Orr when he was drafted. I don't think they were as visible a presence as his career progressed more. But I also can't confess I was checking out the stands of every NFL game to see if the

Tuohys were there. Because one of the things to remember is that this wasn't an unfolding drama that has happened over years that suddenly exploded. There wasn't any real reason to be questioning the relationship between Michael Orr and the Toohey family or to really believe that there were big fractures there. But then, seemingly out of nowhere, he files this petition in a Tennessee probate court that says he was actually placed into a conservatorship, which isn't quite the same thing as adoption. So he was never adopted, is what he's saying. It says he was never adopted, is what he's saying. It says he was never adopted. That's what it says. Orr said it wasn't until February of this year

that he discovered he wasn't actually a legal member of the Toohey family. Instead, he said that in 2004, when he was living with the Tooheys, he was misled into signing documents that placed him in a conservatorship. This gave the Tooheys legal power to make business decisions in his name. I think a lot of Americans have a sense of what a conservatorship is,

and that's for one reason, and that's Britney Spears. When I say Britney, you say Britney. Britney! Britney! Britney! Britney! When I say Britney... Oftentimes when someone's placed in a conservatorship,

it would be because they have some sort of outstanding issue that might prevent them from making decisions or the best decisions on their own behalf. Like if they have a mental disability or something else that would prevent them from making good life decisions for themselves, that is a situation where it would be natural for someone to be placed in a conservatorship so that someone can oversee their affairs and help them. In his petition, Orr asks for an end to the conservatorship.

The Toohey's have not denied the arrangement. A lawyer said that they're willing to end the conservatorship, quote, either now or at any time in the future. Orr's petition also alleges that the Toohey's profited from his story while he was unfairly compensated. It portrays the Toohey's as making, quote, millions off money from the movie that they should have shared with him.

From Michael Orr's perspective, he sees the conservatorship as a mechanism of sorts that helped the Toohey family make decisions about his life that he might not have had as much visibility into. And basically, he might look at a world where a $300 million movie was made off of his life, but he didn't have a huge say in it. A lawyer for the Toohey's called Orr's claims ridiculous and said the family offered Orr support and treated him like one of their own children. He said the Toohey's had given Orr an equal cut of all the money received from the movie. It's an ugly fight between Orr and the Toohey family. And at the same time, he's accusing them

of grifting him out of millions. They're saying he was paid every cent that he deserved and was owed to him from the movie checks and that this is a shakedown. They say his, quote, outlandish claims are hurtful and absurd. So there's a big game of finger-pointing going on, and the only thing that's really certain is that this fairy tale story is in shambles,

because what had been this heartwarming tale of this family taking in a poor kid and helping him achieve his dreams, the feel-goodness of this has completely vanished. What's your takeaway from everything that's happened in the past few days? I think we walk away with a lot of questions, not just about the story, but probably for ourselves about accepting these narratives that might feel too good to be true.

And it's not that the story didn't have everything that says it happened. I mean, the Toohey family did take in Michael Orr. They did provide him with a roof, with a bed, with a family. But I think one of the things this petition has made clear is that at some point over time, the narrative began to crumble. So what's next? What are you going to be looking for in this story? Well, with any legal situation, you always want to follow the court docket. But I think it's going to be really interesting to see how both Michael Orr and the family unpack what happened.

Because was there some moment where everything broke apart? Did it gradually deteriorate over the years? And I think that's what we all want to try to understand. The Journal is a co-production of Gimlet and The Wall Street Journal. If you like our show, follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. We're out every weekday afternoon. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.