‘The Blind Side’ Is A Lie As Michael Oher Filled A Petition And Said He Was Never Adopted
Michael Oher, a retired NFL player whose alleged adoption out of abject poverty by a wealthy, white family was memorialized in the 2009 film “The Blind Side,” filed a petition with a Tennessee court on Monday, alleging that the story’s central claim was a fabrication created by the family to benefit themselves at his expense.
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Oher was taken into Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy’s household as a high school student, but according to the 14-page petition submitted in Shelby County, Tennessee, probate court, they never adopted him. Instead, the couple allegedly duped Oher into signing a paper designating them as his conservators less than three months after he turned 18 in 2004, according to the petition. This granted them the legal right to do business on Oher’s behalf.
In addition, the petition claims that the Tuohys took advantage of their position as conservators to negotiate a deal that gave them and their two biological children millions of dollars in royalties from an Oscar-winning movie that made more than $300 million, but Oher received nothing for a plot “that would not have existed without him.”
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The Tuohys have continued to refer to the 37-year-old Oher as their adopted son over the years, and they have utilized that claim to promote both their foundation and Leigh Anne Tuohy’s writing and speaking career.
“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 says. “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.”
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On Monday, calls made to the Tuohy family’s listed phone lines were not immediately returned.
In his petition, Oher requests that the court dissolve the Tuohys’ conservatorship and appoint an order prohibiting the use of his name and likeness. Additionally, it demands that the Tuohys provide Oher his just portion of the earnings they received while utilizing his name, as well as specific compensatory and punitive penalties.
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“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,” the petition says. “All monies made in said manner should in all conscience and equity be disgorged and paid over to the said ward, Michael Oher.”
The Tuohys reportedly informed Oher, who was a rising high school senior when he signed the conservatorship paperwork, that there wasn’t really a difference between conservatorship and adoption.
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“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,” In his 2011 best-selling memoir, Oher wrote: “I Beat the Odds.”
There are, nevertheless, some significant legal disparities. Oher would have been a legitimate part of the Tuohy family and would have retained the ability to manage his own finances if he had been adopted by them. Oher gave up that power to the Tuohys while under the conservatorship, despite the fact that he was a legal adult without any recognized psychological or physical impairments.
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The petition claims that soon after the publication of the book “Blind Side: Evolution of the Game,” which detailed the story, in 2006, the Tuohys started negotiating a movie deal about their relationship with Oher.
The movie allegedly paid the Tuohys and their two biological children $225,000 each, in addition to 2.5% of the movie’s “defined net proceeds.” The film was a critical and commercial success, earning over $300 million at the box office and tens of millions more from home video sales. The movie was nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture, and Sandra Bullock won the prize for Best Actress for her performance as Leigh Anne Tuohy.
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According to the petition, the agreement permitted the Tuohys to make money off the movie, but another 2007 contract supposedly signed by Oher appeared to “give away” the life rights to his story to 20th Century Fox Studios “without any payment whatsoever.” According to the petition, Oher doesn’t remember signing the contract, and even if he did, nobody gave him an explanation of its ramifications.
The petition claims that according to the agreement, each of the four Tuohy family members is assigned the same Creative Artists Agency representation. The petition claims that Debra Branan, a close family friend of the Tuohys and the same attorney who filed the 2004 conservatorship case, is designated as Oher’s agent, who would receive movie contract and payment notices. On Monday, she left a message for Branan, who did not answer.
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The Tuohys have previously denied receiving a sizable salary from the film, claiming they were paid a fixed fee for the tale and did not share in its earnings. They further said that Oher received a part of what they did make.
“We divided it five ways,” In their book from 2010, the Tuohys wrote: “In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving.”
Despite having long suspected that others were making money off the movie, Oher claims in his court petition that he never received any compensation, according to his attorney, J. Gerard Stranch IV. Oher’s lawyer said that he never received clear answers to his questions.
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And because his lucrative NFL career began in 2009, the same year that the movie was a success, Oher did not have time to completely look into the arrangement until he had already retired, according to Stranch. Later, Oher hired a lawyer who assisted him in learning the specifics of the movie contract and his legal relationship with the individuals he thought were his adoptive parents.
When his attorney discovered the conservatorship certificate in February, Oher was heartbroken to learn that the Tuohys had not actually adopted him.
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“Mike didn’t grow up with a stable family life,” Stranch 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 had been a heartwarming, if unsettlingly conventional, feel-good story takes a sudden turn with the petition. According to how the movie depicted the events, the Tuohys adopted Oher, a Black kid who was struggling academically and was practically homeless. They first integrated Oher into a functioning family. They gave him academic support, taught him the fundamentals of football, and showed him how to make the most of his athleticism, setting him up for success in sports.
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But the reality was more nuanced.
Oher undoubtedly had a difficult upbringing. But he also had the intelligence, fortitude, and a lot of support from the Tuohys and others to overcome his difficulties.
Oher was one of Oher’s mother’s twelve children, who battled drug addiction. Oher was placed in foster care before turning 11 and spent time moving around several homes and occasionally living on the streets. Although he was a good student, he was academically behind because he attended 11 schools in nine years and had to retake both the first and second grades.
His luck changed when the father of a friend, who was moved by Oher’s inner drive and concentration, introduced him to the headmaster of a private Christian school in an affluent Memphis neighborhood. Even though his family life remained tumultuous, Oher started going to school in the 10th grade.
When he started playing football for his new school in the eleventh grade, he rapidly became one of the best offensive linemen in the country, and scholarship offers for college from premier football programs all across the country flooded in.
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Oher frequently spent the night at his classmates’ homes, notably the Tuohys, whose kids went to the school, due to his precarious living status. The petition claims that once Oher’s athletic skill gained widespread exposure, the Tuohys developed a tighter bond. They took him shopping and encouraged him to stay an additional night at their big Memphis house. They eventually requested Oher to relocate. They told him they were going to adopt him and pushed him to call them “mom” and “dad,” according to the documentation.
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According to his lawyer, Oher was thrilled with everything at the time and had complete faith in the Tuohys.
The Tuohys’ alma mater, the University of Mississippi, was where Oher later played collegiate football. He was a first-round selection of the Baltimore Ravens in 2009 and a two-time All-American.
But following the popularity of “The Blind Side,” Oher’s counsel claimed that doubt gradually replaced his confidence in the Tuohys.
“Mike’s relationship with the Tuohy family started to decline when he discovered that he was portrayed in the movie as unintelligent,” Stranch said. “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.”
'Blind Side' subject Oher alleges adoption was lie https://t.co/eUxQFD5LW2
— Kevin Seifert (@SeifertESPN) August 14, 2023
Oher has complained for years about how “The Blind Side” portrayed him, claiming that it damaged his football career and distorted how people perceive him. He claims that some NFL decision-makers felt he was cognitively slow or lacked leadership abilities based on the tape.
“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.”
The Tuohys concurred that Oher has always had what it takes to succeed. “If there is a fundamental misapprehension about Michael, it’s that he needed saving,” the Tuohys wrote in their book. “We discovered that underneath his shyness, his foot shuffling, and his head ducking, he had a tremendous will to determine the course of his own life.”
That scene, where she coaches him about how to be tough on the football field b/c it's about "family." Never happened. https://t.co/VMsIfwHMyr https://t.co/4zUoMx2ICR
— @DRJessieNYC 🇵🇸 (@JessieNYC) February 26, 2021
Oher claims that for many years, he was prepared to live with the myth that the film had helped to build, believing that its motivational message exceeded the hurt caused by what he believed to be its incorrect depiction of his life. However, that has altered.
“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,” Oher wrote in his book “When Your Back’s Against the Wall,” released last week.
“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.”
