Michael Oher admits he’s ‘grateful for the Tuohys’ in interview given just just HOURS before filing lawsuit against ‘adoptive’ family for ‘tricking him into signing conservatorship’ and earning nothing for 2009 hit movie The Blind Side

• The former NFL player filed a legal petition against the Tuohy family Monday 
• Prior to the filing, Oher promoted his book on Mississippi Public Broadcasting 
• DailyMail.com provides all the latest international sports news 

By Patrick Djordjevic

Published: 17:04 EDT, 14 August 2023 | Updated: 20:48 EDT, 14 August 2023

Former Love Is Blind star Nick Thompson has revealed he is at risk of losing his home after struggling to find a job in the wake of his 2021 appearance on the Netflix reality show – for which is says he was paid just ‘$7.14 an hour’ while being ‘treated like a prisoner’. 

The television personality-turned-mental health advocate, who appeared in the show’s second season, has claimed that his life has been ruined by the series, while hitting out at Netflix for ‘exploiting’ him and his fellow cast members.

Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, Nick, 38, said he was only paid $10,000 for 10 weeks of filming and that there has been zero discussion about residual pay, despite the ongoing success of Love Is Blind, which has run for four seasons since its 2020 and is due to debut a fifth instalment in September of this year. 

‘When you think about the amount of money that’s being made, and the way that it’s the path for future seasons, and the fact that anyone can go on and watch me… and I’m going to be homeless,’ he said.

‘I lost my job last November. I’m having an incredibly hard time finding [a new] one.

‘I burned through my savings that cashed out my 401(k). I’ve got two months left in the bank to pay my mortgage. I can’t get a job because people don’t take me seriously.

‘I was a VP in software for five years, so it’s not like I don’t have track record of experience or success.’

Nick also described feeling like he was being kept ‘prisoner’ during his time in the social experiment and believes that he and others by manipulated by producers and psychologists.

Shedding light on the brutal reality of filming Love Is Blind, Nick alleged that producers were ‘in control of you 24 hours a day’.

‘You are filming 18 to 20 hours a day,’ he claimed. ‘And that doesn’t that necessarily mean that you’re always going to be on TV, but you’re miked up from the moment you get there in the morning, and you’re miked up all the way until you leave.

‘Then when you go home at the end of the day, you’re locked in your hotel room without a key without your wallet without money without identification.

‘You literally are held captive like a prisoner and there is absolutely no reason that you shouldn’t be considered an employee when you’re technically under the control of your employer for 24 hours a day.’

Since appearing on Love Is Blind, Nick has gone on to co-launch the Unscripted Cast Advocacy Network (UCAN), which helps provide mental health and legal support to past, present, and future reality television stars.

His comments come just weeks after Real Housewives of New York City alum Bethenny Frankel called for a ‘reality TV reckoning’ amid the ongoing SAG and WGA strikes and argued that stars should receive residuals for the shows they appear in.

He is also in full support of Bethenny’s mission to have reality stars unionize, so that they can negotiate fair workers’ rights and fair pay.

Nick says he made just $10,000 from appearing on the show, explaining that he received $7,000 for seven weeks of filming and a further $3,000 for After The Altar, the episodes that followed the weddings.

He equates this figure to just $7.14 an hour, which is more than a dollar less than the $8.50 minimum wage of Illinois, where the show was primarily filmed.

To further highlight the measly sum, his earnings were also less than the national minimum wage, which was $7.25 in 2021.

While outsiders might argue that Nick could have walked away from the process at any moment, he alleged that he was contractually obligated to continue with the experiment or risk having to pay $50,000 in damages.

Nick believes that he and many other television personalities who appeared on reality shows have been exploited by the streaming platforms, who have churned out inexpensive content at the expense of cast members.

‘We were manipulated, our triggers were utilized against us,’ he claimed. ‘Anything that we shared with a producer or with a psych exam was weaponized against us.’

DailyMail.com has approached Netflix for comment.

While Nick did find love with Danielle Ruhl in the pods, the pair ended divorcing in August 2022 after one year of marriage.

When asked if he would have ever signed up for the show knowing what he knows now, Nick replied: ‘That’s a tough question. I go back and forth. I never thought I’d be on a reality TV show.

‘Even when I took the call, I was like, I’m not for this; I am not very dramatic, I’ve got my s**t together and I’ve got a good professional job, I’ve done a lot of therapy. Next thing I know, I was there.

‘When I think about everything that’s happened and I think about my relationship, it’s hard to say I wish I never did it.’

That said, Nick, who hosts his own podcast Eyes Wide Open, expressed that going on Love Is Blind ‘ruined his life completely’.

‘I wish I could just go back to having a nice life that I had built for myself, instead of wondering whether my mortgage is gonna get paid,’ he admitted. ‘It’s a brutal, brutal, brutal industry.’

Fellow reality stars are said to be feeling the same way about wanting to go on strike and unionizing, but Nick claimed they are too fearful to speak out about their experiences because of contracts.

‘We’ve probably talked to 100 150 people from various shows combined,’ he said, referring to his work at UCAN.

‘And the consensus among most is that they are scared to speak up because of the contracts and the NDAs. They are quietly supporting, but they’re afraid.’

Turning his attention to streamers such as Netflix, Nick, who is fighting for reality show cast members to be treated with dignity and to have basic human rights, said point blank that they do not care.

‘They’re just making that money because reality TV is extremely cheap to produce, and they can continue to do so through the strike,’ he said.

Nick implored Netflix to act and do right by reality stars. ‘They have a great opportunity to lead in the industry and get on the right side of the issue right now,’ he told us.

‘And I don’t hold grudges. If they come to me, or our foundation or to the coalition of people that we’re building, and they say, ‘let’s talk’, that door is always open to them. But they need to get on the right side of the issue.

‘They are going to write themselves out of business if they don’t start treating writers, actors, and all reality cast members properly. I invite them to the right side of the fight.’

It’s ‘disturbing’ Biden family whistleblower has gone missing, top Republican says: Mike Turner says FBI ‘isn’t doing its job’ and ‘turning a blind eye’ after colleague said they have lost informant dishing on Hunter and the first family’s business

By James Franey, Senior U.S. Political Reporter For Dailymail.Com

Published: 13:45 EDT, 16 May 2023 | Updated: 13:45 EDT, 16 May 2023

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Your favorite pair of sunglasses are more than a fashion statement — they also protect your eyes from sunburn.

Dana Galiano, 47, from New Jersey, was struck with photokeratitis — the clinical name for a sunburn on the cornea — in both eyes during a family beach trip to Ocean City in July. She believes the burns are responsible for impairing her short-distance vision. 

The woman did not wear sunglasses on this trip, and when she got home she felt a burning sensation in her eyes as if sand had been blown into them.

She is no longer in pain and her vision has not been harmed drastically in the long-term, though she finds she needs her glasses more often than ever before. 

Doctors strongly advise that people wear sunglasses outside and avoid looking directly into the sun which emits harmful UVA and UVB radiation that over time can lead to cataracts and eyelid cancers. 

‘I don’t always wear sunglasses in the sun, and I started to feel almost like a burning in my eye, not like, from allergies or anything, like an actual burn in the eye,’ Ms Galiano told DailyMail.com.

‘And I didn’t think anything of it… I did realize that there was some mark on my eye, right? But I didn’t know what it was.’

The Jersey native spent a long beach day reading an issue of Us Weekly last summer and felt pain when she returned home.

She said: ‘After I felt like that, I closed my eyes and put a towel over the top of my face, and then when I got home from the beach just rinsed my face with water. And my eye wasn’t red or anything but it was still kind of aching.’

At first, it felt like grains of sand had blown into her eye, causing a severe burning sensation. It turned out that she had experienced a sunburn within her right eye.

One of the primary symptoms of photokeratitis is grittiness in the eyes, which can be mistaken for debris there.

‘I even said to my mom, can you look at my eyes, do I have sand in my eye, like I don’t know what it is because my eye wasn’t red or anything,’ she continued.

‘That’s what’s so crazy about this whole thing, nothing was in my eye and I’d rinsed it out with water,’ she said.

The pain finally subsided a few hours and a dose of Motrin later.

Still, though, she saw a mark on her right eye that had not been there before. But, as a self-described procrastinator when it comes to check-ups, she ignored it.

When the same thing happened in her left eye the following weekend after a day of lounging at the beach, leaving her with another mark, Dana sought medical attention.

She said: ‘Lo and behold, I go to the doctor, and they were like, you have a sunburn in your eye and it’s permanent. And they asked how often do you wear sunglasses. And I’m like, I sometimes wear them but not all the time.

‘I haven’t worn sunglasses my whole life when I’m in the sun. I just don’t do it. So they’re like, you have a burn, a permanent burn on your eye. And you cannot continue to not wear sunglasses.

‘[The doctor] said it just it would get worse. And it actually will affect your vision. So right now the spot on my eye, can see it, but over time, she said what would happen is if I don’t wear sunglasses, that it can eventually get bigger and then you know, I won’t be able to see.’

While she isn’t in pain anymore, Dana has had to get glasses to deal with farsightedness. 

Photokeratitis typically does not harm vision long-term and Dana acknowledged that her doctors could not say for sure that her increased need to wear glasses was a direct result.  

She initially thought losing her vision was a symptom of aging, but her doctor told her the permanent burn could absolutely affect her ability to see.

Dana said: ‘She didn’t say the burn on your eye is 100 percent the reason that you need stronger glasses now. Before I just used them at night for driving, but now I need to wear glasses every day, looking at my computer and to drive.

‘That [damage is] part of it. Because whenever you have any type of damage or something to your eye, like your cornea, it impairs your vision.’

Permanent vision damage due to photokeratitis is rare but not unheard of, according to Dr Jeff Dello Russo, an ophthalmologist who specializes in laser eye surgery in New York and New Jersey.

Dr Dello Russo told DailyMail.com: ‘It’s most often something that happens, you can just see it over a very long period of time, not like one instance in the sun, but it’s possible.

‘You can have photokeratitis with no visible signs other than your eyes are red and irritated, that’s most of the time. Seeing a physical mark like that is less common.’

The condition is caused by the sun’s rays reflecting off water, sand, or snow, and is especially common among winter sports athletes who spend a lot of time at high altitudes where the air is thinner and provides less protection from UV rays.

It is unknown how common or uncommon the condition is, as it can be mistaken for eyestrain, dry eyes, or debris in the eyes. 

Dr Dello Russo said: ‘I don’t think there’s any true incidence report on how common it is.’ 

Ms Galiano has spent much of her life in the sun, including her professional life. As a director at the National Mortgage Insurance Corporation, she conducts a fair bit of business outdoors on the golf course.

Other symptoms of photokeratitis include redness, pain and swelling, tearing, blurred vision, eyelid twitching, sensitivity to light, gritty feeling in the eye, and inflammation of the conjunctiva, or the mucous membrane that protects the eye.

Photokeratitis usually lasts less than a couple of days and permanent damage is rare, but over time repeated cases of photokeratitis can increase your risk of long-term eye damage. For instance, 10 percent of cataract cases can be attributed to too much exposure to UV rays.

Dana is a dedicated polarized sunglasses wearer now, she said, and presses her two daughters ages 15 and 18 to wear them whenever they encounter UV rays.

She said her eyes are ‘a main priority now. It’s my vision, because these are my only eyes.’