Former NFL star Michael Oher, subject of the book and movie "The Blind Side," alleges that the couple who took him in as a teenager misled him into believing they were adopting him — and instead placed him in a conservatorship, according to a court filing Monday.
"The lie of Michael's adoption is one upon which Co-Conservators Leigh Anne Tuohy and Sean Tuohy have enriched themselves at the expense of their Ward, the undersigned Michael Oher," the petition to terminate the conservatorship in Shelby County Court in Tennessee said.
The story of Oher and the Tuohy family became the subject of an Oscar-winning film, “The Blind Side,” starring actor Sandra Bullock in the role of Leigh Anne Tuohy. The film, based on the Michael Lewis book of the same name, chronicled Oher’s life as a homeless child through his college football career and eventual NFL stardom.
The Tuohys negotiated a deal with 20th Century Fox that left Oher without any payment for the rights to his name, likeness and life story while the Tuohy family received a contract price of $225,000 in addition to 2.5% of the film’s net proceeds, the petition states.
The film has grossed over $300 million, the petition says. A $200,000 donation was also made to Leigh Anne Tuohy's charitable foundation.
Oher made no money off the film, the petition said, which was released after he completed his college career and would not have impacted his NCAA eligibility.
According to the petition, Oher does not recall signing the agreement for the rights to his life story. The document has a signature that appears to be his, but "nobody ever presented this document to him with any explanation."
His petition accuses the Tuohys of a breach of their fiduciary duty as conservators “so gross and appalling that they should by sanctioned by this court."
Oher was a ward of the state of Tennessee by the age of 11 and was homeless as a child, according to the filing. A friend's father helped Oher enroll in Briarcrest Christian School in 2002, where Oher played both basketball and football.
The families of classmates often let Oher, who fell through the cracks of a "broken social system," stay in their homes during his time, the petition said.
"Where other parents of Michael's classmates saw Michael simply as a nice kid in need, Conservators Sean Tuohy and Leigh Anne Tuohy saw something else: A gullible young man whose athletic talent could be exploited for their own benefit," the petition said.
![a screenshot of the poem "How to Be a Dog" by Andrew Kane. It reads: If you want to be a dog, first you must learn to wait. You must wait all day until somebody returns, and if somebody returns late, you must learn to wait until then. Then you must learn to speak in one of the voices available to you, high and light or mellow thick and low or middle-range and terse. Whichever voice you learn to speak, you will meet somebody who does not like you because of it, they will be wary or annoyed or you will remind them of something or someone else. Once you have learned to speak you must learn not to speak unless you absolutely must, or to speak as much as you feel you must regardless of how many times you are told to stop, or sit, or placed behind a door—this will depend on what kind of a dog you want to be. And indeed there are many kinds. It may not feel as though you get to choose, and that too is a kind of dog. Next you must learn to relinquish all control over everything you might wish to control. You must learn to prefer to be led about by the neck on a piece of string, or staked to a neglected lawn by a length of chain. You must learn, once you have sampled the freedom of a life without a chain, that it is better to return and be chained again. Or you may learn that it is not—a fugitive is also a kind of dog. Of course you must learn to love, to love always and love entirely and to be wounded by nothing so much as the violence of your own love. You must learn to be confused but never disappointed by a deficiency of love. You must give up your children and not know why. You must lose yourself wholly in activity; you must never feel an itch that you do not scratch. You must learn how to wait at the foot of the bed and hope, silently, that somebody is drunk enough or lonely enough to invite you up, and you must learn not to show your excitement too much or overplay your hand. If you want to be a dog, you must learn to believe that you are not in fact a dog at all. [End Image Description.]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/5f10e46dd110bb4196c1a9b4b924a395/8d9a2f5203fc94be-40/s640x960/cdfc453705112583188801307279d4cf03bd65d5.png)
![a screenshot of the poem "Meditations in an Emergency" by Cameron Awkward-Rich. It reads: I wake up & it breaks my heart. I draw the blinds & the thrill of rain breaks my heart. I go outside. I ride the train, walk among the buildings, men in Monday suits. The flight of doves, the city of tents beneath the underpass, the huddled mass, old women hawking roses, & children all of them, break my heart. There’s a dream I have in which I love the world. I run from end to end like fingers through her hair. There are no borders, only wind. Like you, I was born. Like you, I was raised in the institution of dreaming. Hand on my heart. Hand on my stupid heart. End Image Description.]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/509d097bd825913230e7ebf3daccb064/8d9a2f5203fc94be-ba/s640x960/8b54cef01a243c2c6845737e6e6ac5f7bdd7b9ac.png)
