The story of Michael Oher, the retired NFL star who was supposedly adopted by a wealthy white family who lifted him out of poverty, was immortalized in the 2009 blockbuster film “The Blind Side.” But now, Oher, 37, alleges that much of that heartwarming tale is a lie crafted by the family in order to profit off of his name, ESPN reports.
In a 14-page petition filed Monday in Shelby County, Tenn., Oher alleges that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy never actually adopted him, instead tricking him into ceding his authority to make business deals by making the couple his conservators at age 18.
Per ESPN, Oher claims that the Tuohys arranged the deal that paid them and their two birth children millions of dollars in royalties from the Oscar-winning movie, which raked in more than $300 million at the box office; Oher received no payment. The ex-NFL player alleges that the conservatorship “provided him no familial relationship with the Tuohys,” despite the family continuing to call him their “adopted son” and use the relationship to promote their foundation and Leigh Anne’s work as an author and motivational speaker.
With the petition, Oher is asking the court to terminate the conservatorship and issue an injunction prohibiting the Tuohys from using his name and likeness. He also demands a full accounting of the money earned by the family using Oher’s name and that the Tuohys pay him his “fair share of profits,” plus “unspecified compensatory and punitive damages,” per ESPN.
Oher was raised a child with 11 siblings and his mother struggled with drug addiction. At 10 years old, he was placed into the foster care system and he spent the majority of his adolescence moving from home to home, at times living on the streets. As a teenage sports prodigy, Oher was introduced to the principal of a private Christian school in an affluent Memphis neighborhood, where he began playing football. He quickly became one of America’s top offensive lineman prospects and received various college scholarship offers. In high school, Oher frequently stayed over at the homes of his classmates, including the Tuohys, until Leigh Anne and Sean invited him to move in with them, encouraging him to call them “mom” and “dad.”
Oher, who went on to become a first-round NFL draft pick and Super Bowl winner with the Baltimore Ravens, wrote in his 2011 memoir “I Beat the Odds” that the Tuohys told him the conservatorship meant “pretty much the exact same thing as ‘adoptive parents.'”
According to the filing, the four Tuohys each made $225,000 plus 2.5% of “defined net proceeds” from “The Blind Side,” while Oher made nothing. According to ESPN, he allegedly signed a separate contract in 2007 that gave away his life rights to 20th Century Fox “without any payment whatsoever,” but Oher says he does not remember signing that contract and, if he did, no one warned him of its implications. (Distributor Warner Bros. and producer Alcon Entertainment were not involved in dealmaking for “The Blind Side,” nor responsible for payment of participants.)
based on the report, the Tuohy family struck the deal for the film with an agent at CAA, while Oher’s agent is listed as Debra Branan, “a close family friend of the Tuohys and the same lawyer who filed the 2004 conservatorship petition.”
In their 2010 book “In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving,” the Tuohys claimed they made a flat fee from “The Blind Side.”
For years, Oher has publicly voiced disagreements with how the film, starring Sandra Bullock and Quinton Aaron, portrayed him. Per ESPN, he has said that “some NFL decision-makers assumed he was mentally slow, or lacked leadership skills” because the film made him out to be “unintelligent.”
Oher published his third book, “When Your Back’s Against the Wall: Fame, Football, and Lessons Learned through a Lifetime of Adversity,” last week. According to ESPN, he writes in the memoir, “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.”
In an interview with The Daily Memphian, Sean Tuohy called Oher’s allegations “insulting.”
“We’re devastated,” Tuohy said. “It’s upsetting to think we would make money off any of our children. But we’re going to love Michael at 37 just like we loved him at 16.”
He asserted, “We didn’t make any money off the movie. Well, Michael Lewis [the author of the book ‘The Blind Side’] gave us half of his share. Everybody in the family got an equal share, including Michael. It was about $14,000 each.”
According to Tuohy, an All-American point guard at Ole Miss and supporter of the university’s athletics, the conservatorship was a way to appease the NCAA leading up to Oher’s college football decision. Tuohy would qualify as a “booster” under NCAA rules.
“Michael was obviously living with us for a long time, and the NCAA didn’t like that,” Tuohy said. “They said the only way Michael could go to Ole Miss was if he was actually part of the family. I sat Michael down and told him, ‘If you’re planning to go to Ole Miss — or even considering Ole Miss — we think you have to be part of the family. This would do that, legally.’ We contacted lawyers who had told us that we couldn’t adopt over the age of 18; the only thing we could do was to have a conservatorship. We were so concerned it was on the up-and-up that we made sure the biological mother came to court.”
He said the family would end the conservatorship if Oher wants.
“It’s hard because you have to defend yourself, but whatever he wants, we’ll do,” Tuohy said. “We’re not in this for anything other than whatever he wants. If he’d have said, ‘I don’t want to be part of the family anymore,’ we’d have been very upset, but we absolutely would have done it.”
“No question, the allegations are insulting, but, look, it’s a crazy world. You’ve got to live in it. It’s obviously upset everybody.”
Oher’s representative and his attorney, J. Gerard Stranch IV, were not immediately available for comment, as well as reps for writer-director John Lee Hancock and stars Bullock and Aaron. PvNew has also reached out to the probate court and 20th Century Studios for comment.
