Topline
Retired NFL offensive lineman Michael Oher, whose childhood inspired the 2009 film The Blind Side, filed a petition in a Tennessee state court Monday alleging Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy never adopted him as the film portrays and accusing the family of tricking him into signing a conservatorship agreement, which allowed them to make millions of dollars on his story without paying him anything.
Michael Oher is pictured during the 2009 NFL draft with members of the Tuohy family at Radio City … [+]
Key Facts
The petition, which was filed in a Shelby County probate court, alleges that the Tuohys, who allowed Oher—then a ward in the foster care system experiencing homelessness—to live in their home as a high school student, never adopted him as they have repeatedly publicly claimed.
The couple allegedly tricked Oher into signing an agreement to make them his conservators—he says he was led to believe this was virtually the same as adoption—soon after he turned 18, giving them legal authority to make business deals in his name, including a deal that earned them and their two birth children millions of dollars in royalties from The Blind Side, a film about Oher’s childhood, while Oher received no financial compensation from the film.
The petition also alleges that since the movie’s release, the Tuohys have continued using Oher’s name to enrich themselves, describing the now-37-year-old as their adopted son in an effort to promote their foundation and Leigh Anne Tuohy’s work as an author and motivational speaker.
The petition explained that Oher did not discover the nature of his agreement with the Tuohys until February when “to his chagrin and embarrassment … he learned that the Conservatorship to which he consented on the basis that doing so would make him a member of the Tuohy family, in fact provided him no familial relationship with the Tuohys” but rather gave the family total control over his business dealings.
The petition said the Tuohys saw Oher as “a gullible young man whose athletic talent could be exploited for their own benefit.”
Forbes has reached out to the Touhy’s foundation and personal assistant for comment.
Key Background
The Blind Side tells the supposedly true story of Oher, a poor child in the Tennessee foster case system, defying the odds to play football on a full-ride scholarship in college and then in the NFL, with the help of the generous Tuohy family, who brought Oher into their home, adopted the teenager and helped him hone his football skills on the varsity team at a Memphis-area Christian high school. The film, which starred Sandra Bullock, who won an Oscar for best actress, while the movie earned $309 million at the box office. Monday’s petition casts doubt on the accuracy of the film, arguing that a main plot point is a “lie.” Oher was a star lineman at Ole Miss before the Baltimore Ravens selected him in the first round of the 2009 NFL Draft. He spent eight seasons in the NFL between the Ravens, Tennessee Titans and Carolina Panthers, winning a Super Bowl in 2013.
Tangent
Over the years, Oher has been publicly critical of the film, saying it unfairly depicts him as unintelligent. “People look at me, and they take things away from me because of a movie,” Oher told ESPN in 2015. “They don’t really see the skills and the kind of player I am.” Last week, he released a book, When Your Back’s Against the Wall: Fame, Football, and Lessons Learned Through a Lifetime of Adversity, in which he wrote: “There has been so much created from The Blind Side that I am grateful for, which is why you might find it as a shock that the experience surrounding the story has also been a large source of some of my deepest hurt and pain over the past 14 years … Beyond the details of the deal, the politics, and the money behind the book and movie, it was the principle of the choices some people made that cut me the deepest,” according to ESPN.
What To Watch For
How this case proceeds. The petition asks the court to end the conservatorship, bar the Tuohys from using Oher’s name, image and likeness and require the Tuohys to provide Oher his fair share of the earnings made off his story plus interest and punitive damages.
Further Reading
‘Blind Side’ subject Oher alleges Tuohys made millions off lie (ESPN)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/willskipworth/2023/08/14/ex-nfl-lineman-michael-oher-says-blind-side-story-was-a-lie-accuses-family-of-tricking-him-into-financial-deal/