Super Bowl champion Michael Oher spoke publicly for the first time about his lawsuit against the Tuohy family in an interview with the New York Times for an article published on Sunday. Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy had guardianship over Oher from high school through his eight-year NFL career.
In 2009, the same year Oher was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens, Warner Bros. released The Blind Side, a film about the relationship between Oher and the Tuohy family. Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw played the roles of Leigh Anne and Sean in the film, and it grossed nearly $310 million at the box office.
“My reaction is hard to describe,” Oher told the New York Times, recalling the first time he saw the film. “To be honest, I thought it was kind of funny, like it was a comedy about someone else. I didn’t understand it. But when social media just started growing, I saw things that made me feel stupid. Every article mentioned ‘The Blind Side’ like it was part of my name.”
“When my children don’t know something in class, their teacher thinks: ‘Their father is stupid – is that why they don’t understand it?'”
The film is based on Michael Lewis’ 2006 book about Oher and the Tuohy family. Before the film’s release, Oher felt that Lewis’ book also made him seem uneducated, which he felt affected his draft status. Oher was selected number 23 in the 2009 NFL Draft.
“The NFL people were wondering if I could read a playbook,” Oher said.
Oher eventually went on to have a successful career in the NFL, winning Super Bowl XLVII in 2013 when the Ravens defeated the San Francisco 49ers.
In Oher’s lawsuit against the Tuohys, his lawyers claim the Tuohys exploited him by using his name, image and likeness to promote speaking engagements that have earned them around $8 million over the past 20 years – and by repeatedly saying they had adopted him. In August 2023, Oher filed a 14-page petition accusing the Tuohys of lying about their adoption when they presented him with paperwork to make them his guardians months after his 18th birthday.
The petition also claims the Tuohys negotiated a deal with Twentieth Century Fox that gave them and their two biological children $225,000 each plus 2.5 percent of the “defined net proceeds” from “The Blind Side.” The petition says a separate contract Oher allegedly signed in 2007 “appears to give Fox the life rights to his story without any payment.” Oher says he has no recollection of signing such a document, the filing states.
A Tennessee judge ended the unusual conservatorship last year but did not dismiss the financial part of the case. In filings, the Tuohys said they paid Oher an equal share of the profits from the film “The Blind Side” — about $138,000 — that each of them and their two children received.
Lawyers for the Tuohy family say they have a right to tell the story of their family, which includes Oher. Oher’s lawyers say without him, the Tuohy family would have no profitable story to tell.
The Tuohys have filed a motion for partial summary judgment, set for Oct. 1. The case likely won’t go to trial until 2025, if it ever goes to trial.
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(Photo: Roy Rochlin / Getty Images)
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