Everything Michael Oher Said About 'The Blind Side' Prior to New Lawsuit

Michael Oher made it known that he wasn't a fan of The Blind Side long before he filed his lawsuit. Earlier this week, the former NFL player filed a lawsuit against Leigh Anne Tuohy and Sean Tuohy, the couple that took him in as a teen, as was depicted in the 2009 Oscar-nominated film The Blind Side.

In his 2011 memoir, I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond, Oher expressed his issues with how the movie portrayed him,

"I felt like it portrayed me as dumb instead of as a kid who had never had consistent academic instruction and ended up thriving once he got it," he wrote, before praising the actor that played him, "Quinton Aaron did a great job acting the part."

Oher's other problem with the film, which starred Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw, was that it made it appear that he didn't know about football before the Tuohys, who have two biological children, Collins and S.J., took him in.

"I could not figure out why the director chose to show me as someone who had to be taught the game of football," he wrote of John Lee Hancock. "Whether it was S.J. moving around ketchup bottles or Leigh Anne explaining to me what blocking is about, I watched those scenes thinking, 'No, that's not me at all! I've been studying -- really studying -- the game since I was a kid!' That was my main hang-up with the film."

After playing football at the University of Mississippi, Oher was drafted in the first round by the Baltimore Ravens in 2009. When the team made it to the Super Bowl in 2013, Oher once again expressed his distaste for the film.

"I'm tired of the movie. I'm here to play football," he told reporters at the time, according to The Baltimore Sun. "Football is what got me here and the movie, it wasn't me. I always knew how to play football growing up... Playing football is what got me to this point."

Oher's team went on to win the game. He later played for the Tennessee Titans and the Carolina Panthers. In 2015, when the offensive lineman was with the latter team, he got into a scuffle during a game, which made headlines.

"I'm not trying to prove anything," he told reporters in 2015, according to ESPN. "People look at me, and they take things away from me because of a movie. They don't really see the skills and the kind of player I am. That's why I get downgraded so much, because of something off the field."

"This stuff, calling me a bust, people saying if I can play or not... that has nothing to do with football. It's something else off the field. That's why I don't like that movie," he continued. "That's taken away from my football. That's why people criticize me. That's why people look at me every single play."

Oher added, "Offensive linemen don't get looked at. Nobody is paying attention to the offensive line. But me? I'm getting watched for everything. I know what type of player I am. Everybody else that I know knows what type of player I am. So that kind of stuff doesn't worry me."

Flash forward to August 2023, and Oher had filed his lawsuit, claiming that the Tuohys tricked him into making them his conservators less than three months after he turned 18 in 2004, allegedly telling him there was no consequential difference between being adopted and entering into a conservatorship, giving them legal authority to make business deals in his name.

In an exclusive interview with ET, the Tuohy family's attorney, Steve Farese, Sr., addressed the situation, claiming, "This was the conservatorship of a person. This was not a conservatorship of his finances. No money ever went into a conservatorship. The Tuohy family never had any say-so in his contracts."

Oher's petition asks that the court end the Tuohys' conservatorship and issue an injunction barring them from using his name and likeness. It also seeks a full accounting of the money that the Tuohys earned using Oher's name, and to have the couple pay him his fair share of profits, as well as unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

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