Michael Oher, Depicted in ‘The Blind Facet,’ Says He Was Conned With Adoption Promise

The previous N.F.L. participant Michael Oher, whose journey out of poverty and into soccer stardom was dramatized within the 2009 film “The Blind Facet,” requested a Tennessee court docket on Monday to formally finish his authorized relationship with the household who took him in, claiming that he had by no means truly been adopted and had been tricked into signing away his decision-making powers so the household might make thousands and thousands of {dollars} off his life story.

Oher, 37, is searching for a termination of the conservatorship that started when he was 18, plus cash that he says he ought to have earned from the film, in addition to an injunction stopping Leigh Anne Tuohy and Sean Tuohy from utilizing his title and likeness.

The petition, filed in Shelby County in Tennessee, claims that when he thought he was being adopted, the Tuohys urged him to signal a conservatorship wherein he relinquished his skill enter into contracts. The lawsuit additionally claims that Oher, who began residing with the Tuohys at age 16, unknowingly signed away the rights to his life story to twentieth Century Fox in 2007.

Oher’s lawyer, J. Gerard Stranch IV, was not instantly accessible to remark, based on his workplace.

For “The Blind Facet,” the hit movie that starred Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Tuohy, Tim McGraw as Sean Tuohy and Quinton Aaron as Oher, the Tuohys negotiated a contract of $225,000 plus 2.5 p.c of future “outlined web proceeds” for themselves and their organic youngsters, the lawsuit mentioned.

Oher says within the lawsuit that he acquired nothing whereas the film generated greater than $300 million in income worldwide.

The Tuohy household didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark from The New York Instances. In an interview with The Day by day Memphian on Monday, Sean Tuohy mentioned that he had been “devastated” to listen to in regards to the lawsuit and that it was “upsetting to suppose we’d earn a living off any of our kids.” Tuohy mentioned that he can be prepared to finish the conservatorship and that everyone in his household, together with Oher, obtained an equal share from the film, round $14,000.

Sean Tuohy went on to say the conservatorship had been meant to permit Oher to play on the College of Mississippi, which he and his spouse attended.

In Tennessee, a conservatorship is outlined as an association wherein a court docket removes no less than some “decision-making powers and duties” from “an individual with a incapacity who lacks capability to make selections in a number of vital areas” and grants these duties to a conservator or co-conservators. The 2004 order that granted Oher’s conservatorship to the Tuohys states that Oher appeared to have “no recognized bodily or psychological disabilities.”

Based on the petition, Oher solely just lately discovered — in February this 12 months — that he had not been legally adopted. Oher agreed to enter into the conservatorship considering that it was a required a part of the adoption course of, the lawsuit says.

Oher, who retired from soccer in 2017, was chosen with the No. 23 total decide within the 2009 N.F.L. draft by the Baltimore Ravens and performed eight N.F.L. seasons as an offensive deal with for the Ravens, the Tennessee Titans and the Carolina Panthers. He received the Tremendous Bowl with the Ravens in 2013.

He performed school soccer from 2005 to 2009 at Mississippi, the place he earned two first-team All-Southeastern Convention honors, in 2007 and 2008, and was named a consensus first-team all-American in 2008.

“The Blind Facet,” which was launched in 2009 and was tailored from a 2006 guide by Michael Lewis, depicts Oher as a poor teenager rising up in Memphis and taking care of his mom, who was hooked on cocaine. The film portrays Oher as a naturally proficient athlete, at each basketball and soccer, who’s noticed by a coach at a neighborhood personal college, which later admits him. Oher involves know the Tuohys’ son, Sean Jr., earlier than transferring in with them and incomes a scholarship to Mississippi.

However Oher appeared uncomfortable with the film’s depiction of him, and what it meant for his profession. In a 2015 interview, when he was enjoying for the Panthers, Oher mentioned that the film had portrayed him as much less clever than he was and had influenced how individuals noticed him throughout the sport.

“Individuals take a look at me they usually take issues away from me due to a film,” Oher mentioned. “They don’t actually see the talents and the form of participant I’m. That’s why I get downgraded a lot, due to one thing off the sphere.”