The Blind Side is a 2009 movie based on the true story of former NFL player Michael Oher. Now, Michael Oher is suing the producers of the movie, for spreading a false narrative. The Blind Side, a film adaptation of the Michael Lewis book, was about Oher, a Black orphan who spent time in various foster homes before his adoption by a wealthy white family. The movie intended to show the athlete’s positive development into a successful NFL player. The Blindside lawsuit comes as a shocker, given how everyone universally appreciated the movie.
The Blindside Lawsuit Focuses On Money
We’re now learning, with new court papers, that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy never actually adopted Oher and instead, Oher says they were “deceiving him into making them his conservators just after his 18th birthday,”. The outcome was that they made millions of dollars in movie royalties after the film’s release. The former athlete is now attempting to end the Tuohys’ conservatorship through legal action and is denying them the ability to use his name and likeness any further. According to Oher’s 2011 memoir, the Tuohys tricked him by informing him that adoption and conservatorship were nearly identical and were only differentiated by his age. Oher, as reported by ESPN, asserts that the Tuohys negotiated the agreement themselves which led to them receiving millions of dollars in royalties from the Oscar-winning film.
The movie itself made more than $300 million at the box office. Other beneficiaries from the royalties of the movie’s release are Tuohy’s two biological children. Oher himself received no compensation from the movie. Despite this, the Tuohy family continued to refer to Oher as their “adopted son”, and allegedly used the relationship to highlight their foundation and Leigh Anne’s work as an author and motivational speaker. The former NFL star claims that the conservatorship “provided him no familial relationship with the Tuohys.”
The Blindside Lawsuit Also Refers To The Movie As ‘Largely Fictionalized’
Oher stated in his book, I Beat The Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond, “I felt like it [the movie] portrayed me as dumb instead of as a kid who had never had consistent academic instruction and ended up thriving once he got it.” In a 14-page petition filed in a Tennessee probate court, Oher claims that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy hadn’t adopted him. According to the petition, the Tuohys deceived Oher into signing a form designating them as his conservators three months after he turned 18 in 2004. This granted them the legal right to do business on Oher’s behalf.
Oher is requesting that the conservatorship end and that the Tuohys should be forbidden from utilizing his name and likeness by filing the petition. He also wants the Tuohys to give him his “fair share of profits,” in addition to “unspecified compensatory and punitive damages,” according to ESPN, and complete accounting of the funds the family made using Oher’s name.
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Oher didn’t have a stable family life as a child. When the Tuohy family claimed to love him and wanted to adopt him, it was a huge moment for Oher. Oher has 11 siblings and was brought up by a mother who battled drug addiction. He entered the foster care system when he was 10 years old, and for most of his youth, he moved from home to home, occasionally sleeping on the streets. Oher started playing football at a wealthy Memphis private Christian school after the headmaster took him in as a young sports prodigy.
Sean Tuohy expressed his disbelief at Oher’s claims to the Daily Memphian. He asserted that the family only received a portion of the sales of the book it was based on, not any profits from The Blind Side. “We’re devastated,” he declared. “It makes me sad to think that we would sell any of our kids for money. However, we will continue to adore Michael as much at 37 as we did at 16.
The Tuohys’ legal representative, Steve Farese, declined to speak with ESPN. In the upcoming weeks, the family, according to him, will submit a legal response to the accusations. What do you think about The Blindside Lawsuit? Do you agree with Oher’s claims? Let us know in the comments below.
