Super Bowl champion Michael Oher, whose life inspired the 2009 blockbuster film, “The Blind Side,” is dropping some huge news this week about the family that raised him.
The former NFL offensive lineman claims that the story of a wealthy, white family adopting him was a lie concocted to enrich themselves at his expense. Oher was the subject of the 2009 movie Blind Side starring Sandra Bullock.
Oher filed a 14-page petition in Shelby County, Tennessee, probate court alleging that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, who took him into their home while he was in high school, had never actually adopted him. Instead, he says they tricked him into signing a document to make themselves his conservators, granting them legal authority to make business deals in his name, three months after he turned 18, ESPN reports.
He further accuses them of using their power as conservators to land deals that earned millions in royalties from the Academy Award-winning film while he received zero compensation for the movie “that would have not existed without him.”
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The Tuoyhs continued to call the 37-year-old their adopted son publicly in the years after the popular film’s release.
“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 via 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 started in every game with the Ravens for the five seasons he was with the team, with one of his career highlights coming on February 3, 2013, when he earned a Super Bowl ring after the Ravens beat the San Francisco 49ers 34–31 in Super Bowl XLVII.
After his five-year run with the Ravens, Oher signed a four-year, $20 million contract with the Tennessee Titans. His tenure with the team was short-lived. Oher played in 16 games for the Panthers during the 2015 season and made his second bid for an NFL championship when the team played in Super Bowl 50 against the Denver Broncos. However, the team would come up short.
The former NFL Draft first-round pick retired from the NFL in 2016.
