The Blind Side controversy explained: Michael Oher & the Tuohys

Michael Oher is the real-life subject of The Blind Side, but the movie has become the subject of controversy after he recently filed a lawsuit against the Tuohy family. Here’s everything you need to know.

In the 2009 movie, Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron) is portrayed as a young Black man who’s not had much luck: his mother was a drug addict, his father’s dead, and despite his talents in “anything with a ball,” he doesn’t have many prospects looking ahead.

Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock), a strong-willed businesswoman from Tennessee, takes him into her family’s home, buys him a whole new wardrobe, gets him a tutor to get him through school, and helps him get into the University of Mississippi (aka, Ole Miss). During the film, Leigh Anne and her husband Sean Sr. decide to adopt Michael, and while they’re investigated by the NCAA for possibly poaching a gifted footballer for their alma matter, the movie has a happy ending.

Nearly 15 years later, Oher has claimed the movie’s rags-to-riches, heart-warming story is a big lie concocted by the Tuohy family.

Why has Michael Oher sued the Tuohy family?

Michael Oher has accused Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy of tricking him into signing a document that made them his conservators, thereby allowing his apparent adopted parents to make lucrative business deals in his name. He’s asked the court to end the conservatorship, issue an injunction prohibiting them from using his name and likeness, and he’s also seeking a “full accounting” of any and all money earned via Oher’s name and story, including a share of profits and “unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.”

According to a 14-page petition filed in a Tennessee court, the Tuohys never adopted Oher. Instead, they allegedly duped him into a conservatorship less than three months after he turned 18 in 2004 and “enriched” themselves as Oher’s career took off, as well as the global recognition of the family’s story.

As per ESPN, the filing reads: “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.

“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.

“Since at least August of 2004, Conservators have allowed Michael, specifically, and the public, generally, to believe that Conservators adopted Michael and have used that untruth to gain financial advantages for themselves and the foundations which they own or which they exercise control. All monies made in said manner should in all conscience and equity be disgorged and paid over to the said ward, Michael Oher.”

The petition also alleges that Oher’s co-conservators began negotiations for The Blind Side two years after his purported adoption. Their two children were allegedly paid $225,000 each in addition to 2.5% of the movie’s “defined net proceeds”, a gainful deal considering the film’s $309 million worldwide box office gross.

However, Oher claims to have made nothing for a story “that would not have existed without him”, and while his signature appears on a 2007 contract that appears to “give away” the rights to his life story to 20th Century Fox studios “without any payment whatsoever”, he “at no time ever willingly or knowingly signed this document and… nobody ever presented this contract to him with any explanation that he was signing such a document.”

In a statement, as per BBC News, the ex-NFL star said: “I am disheartened by the revelation shared in the lawsuit today. This is a difficult situation for my family and me. I want to ask everyone to please respect our privacy at this time. For now, I will let the lawsuit speak for itself and will offer no further comment.”

What have the Tuohys said about Michael Oher’s Blind Side lawsuit?

While Leigh Anne Tuohy has yet to comment on the allegations, Sean Tuohy said they’re “devastated” by the lawsuit.

In a statement to the Daily Memphian, he said: “We’re devastated. 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.”

Sean recalled how the Tuohys were considered “boosters”, described as “representatives of the institution’s athletic interests”, so the conservatorship was a way to appease the NCAA.

“Michael was obviously living with us for a long time, and the NCAA didn’t like that. They said the only way Michael could go to Ole Miss was if he was actually part of the family,” Sean said.

“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.”

Tuohy also said the family will terminate the conservatorship if that’s what Oher wants, but he’s contended the part of the lawsuit concerning royalties gained from the movie. “We didn’t make any money off the movie,” he claimed.

“Well, Michael Lewis [who wrote the book that inspired 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. We were never offered money. We never asked for money. My money is well-documented. You can look up how much I sold my company for.”

Sean said it’s “upsetting that people would think I would want to make money off any of my children.”

SJ Tuohy, Leigh Anne and Sean’s biological son (played by Jae Head in the movie), told Barstool Sports that he “gets” why Oher is “mad… it stinks that it’ll play out on a very public stage. That part sucks, but, oh well.”

He also said he’s made “like $60, $70 grand over the course of the last four or five years” from the movie.

What is the difference between adoption and conservatorship?

Adoption is the process in which a child joins a family different from their birth parents, but still retains the right to their own affairs (health, financial, or otherwise) once they turn 18. A conservatorship is the transfer of the right to make all major life decisions.

As defined in Tennessee law, a conservatorship is a “proceeding in which a court removes the decision-making powers and duties, in whole or in part, in a least restrictive manner, from a person with a disability who lacks capacity to make decisions in one or more important areas and places responsibility for one or more of those decisions in a conservator or co-conservators.”

Oher isn’t disabled, nor was he at an age that would have indicated any need for a conservatorship. According to the petition, the Touhys took control of his “ability to negotiate for or enter any contract, despite the fact he was over 18 years of age and had no diagnosed physical or psychological disabilities.”

Oher claims the Tuohys said there wasn’t much, if any difference between adoption and conservatorship. “They explained to me that it 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,” he wrote in his memoir, I Beat the Odds.

His attorney, J Gerard Stranch IV, discovered the conservatorship document in February this year after Oher asked him to dig into the legal agreements around the film. “Mike didn’t grow up with a stable family life,” the lawyer said.

“When the Tuohy family told Mike they loved him and wanted to adopt him, it filled a void that had been with him his entire life. Discovering that he wasn’t actually adopted devastated Mike and wounded him deeply.”

What does Michael Oher think about The Blind Side?

Michael Oher has spoken in several interviews and his memoir about the movie, believing it to have had a negative effect on his career.

Speaking to ESPN in 2015, he said: “People look at me, and they take things away from me because of a movie. They don’t really see the skills and the kind of player I am. That’s why I get downgraded so much, because of something off the field.”

In the film, Oher is portrayed as “unintelligent”, which Stranch cited as the first reason for his relationship with the Tuohys deteriorating after the movie’s release, and it had a knock-on effect to how he was viewed on the pitch.

“This stuff, calling me a bust, people saying if I can play or not… that has nothing to do with football. It’s something else off the field. That’s why I don’t like that movie.”

In his new book, When Your Back’s Against The Wall, he said: “Whatever you see in the movie or books you’ve have to understand what it took for me to be this 18-year-old kid when this story took shape.

“And the things I went through and had to do to go through to that point I went through from three years old to 18 when I moved in with the Tuohy family – who I’m grateful for letting me stay my senior year there. But you have to understand, I was an All-American football player before I moved in with them, you have to understand what it took for me to get to that point.”

Oher has also spoken about the positive impact of The Blind Side, specifically how it’s inspired impoverished children all over the world. “You’d be surprised how many letters I’ve gotten, people have adopted kids or how many lives have changed,” he earlier told AP.

“I’m definitely excited about that because coming from poverty in the inner city where I come from, so many people look up to me. They say, ‘If I can do it, they can do it.’ So I’m definitely happy about that and proud about that part of it.”

In the book, he also 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.”

We’ll keep this article updated with further updates. You can check out our other TV & movies coverage here.