One year after filing a lawsuit against Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, former NFL player Michael Oher is speaking publicly about his ruptured relationship with the couple. The Super Bowl winner, who is Black, accuses the Tuohys, a wealthy white Memphis, Tennessee, couple who welcomed him into their home, of exploiting him for financial gain.
In a recent interview with Michael Sokolove of The New York Times Magazine, Oher, 38, said he’s pursuing legal action not for money but to restore his name. Oher and the Tuohys were the subject of Michael Lewis’ 2006 book “The Blind Side” and the 2009 film of the same name. According to Oher, the book and movie portrayed him as dumb and helpless.
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Last year, a probate judge in Tennessee dissolved a conservatorship the Tuohys had established when Oher turned 18. The Tuohys have denied charges of exploitation, saying Oher has tried to blackmail them.
Michael Oher Challenges ‘The Blind Side’ Narrative
Now that his eight-year pro career is over, Michael Oher wants to “be the person I was before ‘The Blind Side.’” He said he became so closely linked to the film that it defined him, mostly negatively.
Speaking to The New York Times Magazine, Oher explained he was a vulnerable teen when the Tuohys took him in. The first time he heard “I love you” was from the couple, when he was 18. “You let your guard down, and then you get everything stripped from you,” Oher said. “Nobody says ‘I love you’ more than coaches and white people. When Black people say it, they mean it.”
Oher acknowledged that he benefited from living with the Tuohys during high school. But he said they later used his name, image, and likeness to earn millions in speaking fees. Leigh Anne Tuohy has been billed as “the adoptive mother of NFL football star Michael Oher,” though the couple never adopted him.
The Tuohys said they used the term “adoption” colloquially, “to describe the family relationship” they felt with Oher. But according to Oher’s lawyers, that isn’t “a word you throw around lightly.”
Lewis, who defends his book as accurate, has said Oher’s “change of behavior” toward the Tuohys could be related to CTE, a condition linked to head trauma.
Tuohys: We Still Love Michael Oher
When Michael Oher saw “The Blind Side” about a month after it premiered, he said it felt like watching “a comedy about someone else.” The film portrayed him as silent and unintelligent, he said, to the point that “the NFL people were wondering if I could read a playbook.”
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