The Blind Side Lie: Michael Oher Alleges He Was Never Adopted, Made No Money from Movie

The post The Blind Side Lie: Michael Oher Alleges He Was Never Adopted, Made No Money from Movie appeared first on Consequence.

Michael Oher, the retired NFL star whose rags-to-riches story was the basis for The Blind Side, has petitioned a Tennessee court, claiming that the 2009 movie was based on a lie, reports ESPN. Oher alleges that not only was he never actually adopted by Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, but he also never saw a dime from the Oscar-winning film.

According to the 14-page filing, the Tuohys never formally adopted Oher after bringing him into their home as a high school student, but instead tricked him into signing conservatorship papers shortly after he turned 18, which gave them legal authority to make dealings in his name. With that power, the couple allegedly shut out Oher from profiting from a story “that would not have existed without him.”

The petition asks the court to end the conservatorship and seeks an injunction barring the Tuohys from using Oher’s name and likeness. He also seeks a full accounting of the money that the Tuohys earned using his name, a fair share of the profits, and unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

Oher’s attorney J. Gerard Stranch IV wrote in the petition that Oher didn’t start looking into the deal until after his retirement in 2016 because the film’s success coincided with the start of his NFL career. As a result, Oher did not find out about the conservatorship until this past February. All the while, the Tuohys have continued to call the 37-year-old their adopted son while promoting their foundation and Leigh Anne Tuohy’s work as an author and motivational speaker.

“The lie of Michael’s adoption is one upon which Co-Conservators Leigh Anne Tuohy and Sean Tuohy have enriched themselves at the expense of their Ward, the undersigned Michael Oher,” reads the petition. “Michael Oher discovered this lie to his chagrin and embarrassment in February of 2023, when 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.”

As ESPN points out, Oher previously wrote in his 2011 memoir, I Beat the Odds, that the Tuohys told him that the conservatorship “means pretty much the exact same thing as ‘adoptive parents,’ but that the laws were just written in a way that took my age into account.” However, the key distinction between the two is Oher would have retained power over his financial affairs as a legal adoptee. In the conservatorship, the Tuohys took that control.

According to the petition, the Tuohys and their two birth children received $225,000 each plus 2.5% of defined net proceeds from The Blind Side, which grossed more than $300 million at the global box office. Not only did Oher allegedly receive nothing from the movie, but a separate contract that was purportedly signed by him appeared to “give away” his life rights “without any payment whatsoever.” However, Oher does not remember signing that contract.

For their part, the Tuohys have previously claimed they received a flat fee for Oher’s story and that any profits from the movie were shared five ways as part of an equal split with Oher.

Update: While responding to the allegations, Sean Tuohy told the Daily Memphian that the family was “devastated” by the reports and said “of course” he would be willing to end the conservatorship. According to Tuohy, the only reason it existed in the first place was to appease NCAA booster rules. “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,'” Tuohy said.

He continued, “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.”

Tuohy also claimed that the share of the movie his family did receive was split evenly. “Michael Lewis [the author of the book The Blind Side] gave us half of his share,” he said. “Everybody in the family got an equal share, including Michael. It was about $14,000, each.”

The Ole Miss alum was indignant about the idea that he needed the money in the first place. “My money is well-documented; you can look up how much I sold my company for,” Tuohy boasted. “The last thing I needed was $40,000 from a movie. I will say it’s upsetting that people would think I would want to make money off any of my children.”

Oher was born into a family of 12 children and placed in foster care before his 11th birthday. He gained attention for his athletic prowess while attending high school at Briarcrest Christian School and frequently stayed over at his classmates’ homes due to his unstable housing. According to the petition, the Tuohys invited him to spend more nights over after his profile began to rise as an athlete. In addition to encouraging him to call them “mom” and “dad,” they shared plans to adopt him.

He went on to play college at the University of Mississippi, where he was a two-time All-American, and became a first-round pick of the Baltimore Ravens in 2009. However, Oher’s relationship with the Tuohys started to fall apart after the success of The Blind Side.

“Mike’s relationship with the Tuohy family started to decline when he discovered that he was portrayed in the movie as unintelligent,” Stranch wrote in the petition. “Their relationship continued to deteriorate as he learned that he was the only member of the family not receiving royalty checks from the movie, and it was permanently fractured when he realized he wasn’t adopted and a part of the family.”

Based on Michael Lewis’ book of the same name, The Blind Side was released in 2009 and was written and directed by John Lee Hancock. Sandra Bullock, who played Leigh Anne Tuohy, won the Academy Award for Best Actress for the role, while Tim McGraw portrayed Sean Tuohy, and Quinton Aaron played Oher.

Oher retired in 2016 after an eight-year career in which he won the Super Bowl in 2013 with Baltimore Ravens. His latest book, When Your Back’s Against the Wall, was published last week and alludes to some of the details in the petition.

The Blind Side Lie: Michael Oher Alleges He Was Never Adopted, Made No Money from Movie
Eddie Fu

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