This will be a jolt for anyone who saw the movie The Blind Side or read the book that preceded it. Michael Oher, the real-life football player at the heart of the story, is suing the couple who famously took him in, reports NBC News. Oher, who went on to play in the NFL, accuses Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy of Tennessee of lying to him about adopting him and of duping him into signing away the financial rights to his name. He says the Tuohys never actually adopted him but instead placed him in a conservatorship at age 18, and he alleges that they misled him into thinking it was a standard part of the process.
"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," according to the petition filed in Tennessee probate court, per the AP. "Michael did not understand that if the Conservatorship was granted, he was signing away his right to contract for himself." The movie—which won an Oscar for Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Tuohy—tells the story of how Oher grew up in poverty before being taken in as a teenager by the Tuohys. Oher claims the family—including the Tuohys' two biological children—struck a deal that earned them millions off the 2009 movie while excluding him, per the Guardian.
"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 petition reads. It calls for the conservatorship to be ended and for the Tuohys to pay him what he is due, plus interest. Sean Tuohy tells the Daily Memphian that he and his wife are "devastated" that Oher thinks they wronged him and says the move was made to comply with NCAA rules. He says Oher was toying with the idea of attending Tuohy's alma mater, Ole Miss, at the time. Since Tuohy was a booster of the school, he says Oher could only play there if he was "part of the family," and that they were told a conservatorship was the only way to handle it since Oher was over age 18.
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"It's upsetting to think we would make money off any of our children," Tuohy says. "But we're going to love Michael at 37 just like we loved him at 16." The book was written by acclaimed author Michael Lewis, who is described in the petition as a childhood friend of Sean Tuohy's, notes the AP. Lewis has not commented on the controversy yet. (More Michael Oher stories.)
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