Former NFL star Michael Oher's rags-to-riches life story was dramatized in the 2009 film The Blind Side, starring Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw as Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy, a wealthy white couple who adopted the poverty-stricken Oher as a teenager and helped him forge a career in professional football. Now, the 37-year-old Oher alleges that the Tuohys never actually adopted him but instead tricked him into an oppressive conservatorship and withheld millions of dollars in film royalties from him.
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According to ESPN, Oher filed a petition in a Tennessee court on Aug. 14 alleging that the Tuohys misled him into believing that a legal agreement he signed when he was 18 years old was a form of adoption. The agreement was, in fact, a conservatorship. Additionally, Oher claims that he received no royalty payments from The Blind Side, the Oscar-winning 2009 biopic of his life. Instead, according to the terms of the film deal that the Tuohys arranged, the Tuohys and their birth children were paid millions of dollars in film royalties.
"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," the legal filing states, according to ESPN. "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."
Oher is asking the court to terminate the conservatorship and issue an injunction prohibiting the Tuohy family from using his name and likeness. The ex-NFL star also requests a full accounting of the money the Tuohys earned over the years from using his name. Oher demands that the Tuohys pay him his "fair share of the profits" as well as "unspecified compensatory and punitive damages."
The filing states that Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy and their two children each made $225,000 plus 2.5% of "defined net proceeds" from The Blind Side, which received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture and landed Sandra Bullock a Best Actress trophy for her portrayal of Leigh Anne Tuohy. In their 2010 book In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving, the Tuohys claimed they received only a flat fee from the film.
Oher received no compensation whatsoever for the film, which was based on his life story. According to the report, the Tuohy family struck the film deal with an agent at CAA. Oher's agent is listed as Debra Branan, "the same lawyer who filed the 2004 conservatorship petition" and "a close family friend of the Tuohys."
Oher's latest filing echoes statements the NFL retiree has previously made regarding the film. In his 2011 memoir I Beat the Odds, Oher recounted that the Tuohys told him the conservatorship meant "pretty much the exact same thing as 'adoptive parents.'"
The Blind Side immortalized Oher's life as one of professional sports' greatest success stories. Growing up one of 11 children, Oher's mother struggled with addiction. He was placed in foster care at 10 years old and periodically lived on the streets until he began playing football at a private Christian school in Memphis. In high school, Oher came to live with the Tuohys, who insisted he call them "mom and dad." He became one of the nation's top offensive lineman prospects and fielded scholarship offers from various colleges.
Oher went on to play college football at the University of Mississippi, the Tuohys' alma mater. He was a two-time All-American and a first-round pick of the Baltimore Ravens in 2009.
According to ESPN, Oher wrote in his third book, When Your Back's Against the Wall: Fame, Football, and Lessons Learned through a Lifetime of Adversity, published last week:
"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."
