Everything isn’t peachy in the real-life story of Michael Oher and his adopted family, the Touhys. The football star’s story has been subject to public opinion since it was dramatized in the hit movie starring Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw, The Blind Side.
The real Michael Oher was blindsided by his adoptive family it seems. The football legend broke his silence about the lawsuit he filed against the Touhys, whom he considered his family since the early 2000s.
Oher had a rough upbringing growing up with parents who had substance abuse problems. He was very close to being a kid on the streets of Tennessee when a family took him in, the Touhys, back in 2004. Leigh Anne and Sean Touhy gave him a home and welcomed him into their family.
But according to Oher, his relationship with the Touhys wasn’t at all familial-like. According to his lawsuit, he was made to sign a document and 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.”
This all came to light when Oher discovered that the Touhys had made him sign a conservatorship that let them control his image and make money off him. He alleged that although a big success, he hasn’t received any money for The Blind Side which was essentially a story about his life.
His lawsuit in essence was a petition to the courts to invalidate the conservatorship and set him free from the control of the Touhys. He seeks to prevent the Touhys from using his name and images to make money. Additionally, he also wants a fair share of the profit that they made from all the business dealings where they used his name.
The Blind Side was a hit in the cinemas and on streaming platforms, making around $300 million upon its release. And Oher, who was the real person behind the movie, wanted his share of the money.
Comments from Michael Oher and the Family
Leigh Anne and Sean Touhy haven’t commented publicly on the lawsuit yet, but their son Sean Jr. gave an interview. He said, “I want to preface this by saying I loved Mike at 16, I love [Michael] now at 37, and I’ll love him at 67,” SJ began during an appearance on Barstool Radio on Monday, August 14. “If he says he learned that in February, I find that hard to believe. [I went back to] our family group texts … to see what things have been said. And there are things back in 2020, 2021 [that] was like, you know, ‘If you guys give me this much, then I won’t go public with things.’ And so I don’t know if that’s true. I think everyone learned in the past year about the conservatorship stuff because of Britney Spears so maybe that’s the case.”
Michael Oher said, “This is a difficult situation for my family and me. I want to ask everyone to please respect our privacy at this time. For now, I will let the lawsuit speak for itself and will offer no further comment.”
Right now we don’t know how or why the relationship within the family soured, but this might be another conservatorship case that comes second to Britney Spears.