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Michael Oher filed a legal petition against Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy claiming that they hadn’t adopted him and kept him from making money on Monday, Aug 14, per ESPN. The former NFL player, 37, said that rather than adopting him, the family convinced him to sign paperwork putting him in a conservatorship. Michael’s story had served as the inspiration for the Oscar-winning movie The Blind Side. In the filing, he claimed that the Tuohy family lied about the adoption elements of the story.
The petition asks for the conservatorship to end and that the Tuohys will not be able to use Michael’s name and likeness. He’s also seeking money that the family earned him from using his name and story, as well as other compensatory and punitive damages. “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 filing says.
The petition claims that the Tuohys had told Michael that they would legally adopt him after he turned 18 in 2004. He alleged that the family told him that since he was over the age of 18, the adoption would be called a conservatorship, according to NBC News. “At no point did the Tuohys inform Michael that they would have ultimate control of all his contracts, and as a result Michael did not understand that if the Conservatorship was granted, he was signing away his right to contract for himself,” the filing says.
The conservatorship was supposed to be dissolved when Michael turned 25, but it was not. The former NFL player didn’t learn about this until earlier this year. “Michael Oher discovered this lie to his chagrin and embarrassment in February of 2023, when he learned that the Conservatorship to which 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,” the filing says.