When the real Michael Oher got the chance to tell his own story in his 2011 memoir I Beat the Odds, he wrote, “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.”
“Quinton Aaron [the actor who played Oher in the film] did a great job acting the part, but I could not figure out why the director chose to show me as someone who had to be taught the game of football,” he continued. “Whether it was SJ 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.” He also revealed that it was a different family that helped him get into private school where he eventually met the Tuohys, though, again, that’s the kind of simplification common in Hollywood.
Per ESPN, Oher’s book acknowledges that he was placed under a conservatorship by the Tuohys, but it seems Oher had been operating under a false understanding of what that arrangement meant in spirit and in practice. “They explained to me that it means pretty much the exact same thing as ‘adoptive parents,’ but that the laws were just written in a way that took my age into account,” Oher wrote at the time. According to his attorney, it wasn’t until February 2023 that the former football star, now 37, understood that this was not the case.
What is Oher saying now?
On August 14, 2023, Oher brought forth allegations that go far beyond putting a big-screen spin on an authentically inspiring story. For starters, Oher claims the Tuohys “tricked” him into signing conservatorship papers when he was 18 by telling him that it was functionally the same as adoption. However, if Oher had been a legal member of the family, he would have “retained power to handle his financial affairs,” per ESPN. Under the conservatorship, “Oher surrendered that authority to the Tuohys, even though he was a legal adult with no known physical or psychological disabilities.”
Oher’s attorney adds that the family then profited from the lie that he had been adopted, intentionally misrepresenting themselves as his “adoptive” parents to the public. “Since at least August of 2004, Conservators have allowed Michael, specifically, and the public, generally, to believe that Conservators adopted Michael and have used that untruth to gain financial advantages for themselves and the foundations which they own or which they exercise control,” the petition says. “All monies made in said manner should in all conscience and equity be disgorged and paid over to the said ward, Michael Oher.”
The petition to dissolve the conservatorship also asks the court to issue an injunction barring the Tuohys from using Oher’s name and likeness.
Additionally, per People, the petition states that “all four members of the Tuohy family were paid $225,000 for the film plus 2.5% of the film’s proceeds,” but Oher got nothing. This detail from the filing, as reported by ESPN, has raised eyebrows: “The deal lists all four Tuohy family members as having the same representative at Creative Artists Agency…but Oher’s agent, who would receive movie contract and payment notices, is listed as Debra Branan, a close family friend of the Tuohys and the same lawyer who filed the 2004 conservatorship petition.”
