Michael Oher of THE BLIND SIDE Fame says the Tuohy family never adopted him and tricked him into being a Conservative; The family responds

Michael Oher he is the real-life professional athlete that the film The blind side it’s based on. Oher criticized the film’s portrayal of her life and character, and the way the story was told, famously disagreeing with the fact that the film’s mother figure seemed to adopt the young man she saw walking at night and taught to play soccer. . The mother, played by Sandra Bullockin the role for which he won an Oscar, he actually did no such thing, and Michael Oher is now talking about it.

The retired NFL star who was allegedly adopted by a wealthy white family who lifted him out of poverty was immortalized in the 2009 blockbuster. But now, Oher, 37, says much of that heartwarming story is a lie created by the family to profit from its name, reports ESPN via Variety.

In a 14-page petition filed Monday in Shelby County, Tennessee, Oher claims Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy never actually adopted him, but tricked him into relinquishing his authority to do business by making the couple his guardians at the time. age of 18.

According to ESPN, Oher says the Tuohys arranged the deal that paid them and their two birth children millions of dollars in royalties from the Oscar-winning film, which grossed more than $300 million at the box office; Oher has not received any payment. The former NFL player claims the guardianship “gave him no familial relationship to the Tuohys,” despite the family still calling him their “adopted son” and using the relationship to promote their foundation and Leigh Anne’s work as an author and motivational speaker.

With the petition, Oher asks the court to end the guardianship and issue an injunction banning the Tuohys from using his name and likeness. He also requests a complete accounting of the money the family earned using the Oher name and that the Tuohys pay him his “fair share of the profits,” plus “unspecified compensatory and punitive damages,” according to ESPN.

Oher grew up with 11 siblings as a child, and his mother struggled with drug addiction. At 10 he was placed in foster care and spent most of his adolescence moving from house to house, sometimes living on the streets. As a teenage sports prodigy, Oher was introduced to the principal of a private Christian school in an affluent Memphis neighborhood, where he took up soccer. He quickly became one of America’s top offensive lineman prospects and received various college scholarship offers. In high school, Oher often stayed at the homes of his classmates, including the Tuohys, until Leigh Anne and Sean invited him to move in with them, encouraging him to call them “mom” and “dad”.

Oher, who became a first-round NFL draft pick and Super Bowl winner with the Baltimore Ravens, wrote in his 2011 memoir I beat the odds that the Tuohys had told him guardianship meant “pretty much the exact same thing as ‘adoptive parents.'”

According to the filing, the four Tuohys each earned $225,000 plus 2.5% “defined net proceeds” from The blind side, while Oher did nothing. According to ESPN, he allegedly signed a separate deal in 2007 that gave his rights to the life to 20th Century Fox “for no payment,” but Oher says he doesn’t remember signing that deal, and if he did, no one notified him. of its implications. (Distributor Warner Bros. and producer Alcon Entertainment have not been involved in negotiations for The blind sidenor responsible for paying participants.)

Based on the report, the Tuohy family finalized the film deal with a CAA agent, while Oher’s agent is listed as Debra Branan, “a close family friend of the Tuohys and the same attorney who filed the guardianship petition of 2004”.

In their 2010 book In the blink of an eye: sharing the power of cheerful giftingthe Tuohys claimed to have earned a flat fee from The blind side.

For years, Oher has publicly expressed disagreements about how the film, starring Sandra Bullock and Fifth Aaron, portrayed him. According to ESPN, he said that “some NFL decision makers assumed he was mentally slow or lacked leadership skills” because the film made him “dumb.”

Oher has published his third book, When Your Back is Against the Wall: Fame, Football, and the Lessons Learned During a Lifetime of Adversity, last week. According to ESPN, he writes in the memoir, “So much was created by The blind side which I am grateful for, which is why you may find it shocking that the experience surrounding the story has also been a great source of some of my deepest hurts and pains over the past 14 years.

Sean Tuohy responded to the allegations by telling the Daily Memphian: “We are devastated. It’s shocking to think that we would make money off any of our children. But we will love Michael at 37 just like we loved him at 16.”

Tuohy says the family “didn’t make any money off the film,” adding, “Well, Michele Lewis he gave us half his share. Everyone in the family got an equal share, including Michael. They were around $14,000, each. We have never been offered any money; we never asked for money. My money is well documented; you can check how much i sold my company for.

He added, “Michael has obviously lived with us for a long time, and the NCAA didn’t like him. They said the only way Michael could go to Ole Miss was if he was actually part of the family. I sat Michael down and said, “If you’re going to go to Ole Miss – or even consider Ole Miss – we think you should be part of the family.” This would do that, legally.’ We contacted lawyers who told us we could not adopt over 18; the only thing we could do was have a guardianship. We were so concerned that she was growing up that we made sure the biological mother goes to court.”

He concluded by saying: “It is difficult because you have to defend yourself, but what he wants, we will do. We’re not here for anything other than what you want. If he had said, “I don’t want to be part of the family anymore,” we would have been very upset, but we absolutely would have. There’s no doubt, the allegations are offensive, but, look, it’s a crazy world. You have to live in it. Obviously he shocked everyone.

What a fucking disappointment this whole story turned out to be. Talk about being blinded. I hope Oher is able to get the money that was meant for him, or at least be able to carry on without the Tuohys claiming his history and future proceeds.