Michael Oher, the inspiration behind 'The Blind Side,' has been critical of the controversial film for over a decade — here's everything he's said

• On Monday, Michael Oher filed a lawsuit alleging the adoption story behind "The Blind Side" is a lie. 
• According to the filing, he was never adopted by the Tuohy family — he was put into a legal conservatorship.
• Oher has been publicly critical of the Oscar-winning movie dating back to at least 2011.

On Monday, Michael Oher, the ex-NFL star and the inspiration behind the Sandra Bullock hit film "The Blind Side," alleged in court documents obtained by Insider that the Tuohy family never actually adopted him. Instead, the filing states, the family used him as a "gullible" young man who could be "exploited for their own benefit." 

In the document, filed in probate court in Shelby County, Tennessee, Oher claims that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy — who took Oher into their home when he was in high school — tricked him into signing documents that entered him into a conservatorship three months after his 18th birthday in 2004. Before he turned 18, Oher was a ward of the foster care system in Tennessee.

Oher said in the filing that he signed the conservatorship papers, believing they were adoption papers, and only discovered the truth in February 2023. The conservatorship gave the Tuohys legal control over Oher's education and medical decisions, the documents say, even though he had no known physical, mental, or emotional disabilities that would necessitate such an arrangement.

Oher also alleged that he never received any compensation for the Oscar-winning movie that was based on his path to NFL stardom, though Sean and Leigh Anne included their biological children in their contract negotiations, which the filing says netted the family $225,000 plus 2.5% of the film's "defined net proceeds" in the future.

Oher filed the documents because he was seeking an end to the conservatorship, plus compensation based on the money he says the Tuohys received from "The Blind Side" and the sale of Oher's life rights, which the documents also allege he was never paid for. The retired NFL star is also seeking "compensatory and punitive damages" from the Tuohys, payment for his legal fees, and an injunction preventing them from using his name, story, or likeness in the future, per the documents.

In an interview with the Daily Memphian on Monday, Sean Tuohy denied making a lot of money off of "The Blind Side," saying everyone in the family, including Oher, had received an equal share of $14,000 each and that he'd made his money from selling his company. He also denied that the conservatorship was used to exploit Oher and said the family was "devastated" by Oher's allegations. Sean claimed to the Daily Memphian that Oher's conservatorship was put in place to satisfy NCAA rules so that Oher could go to the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss). He explained that he and Leigh Anne were told by lawyers that they couldn't adopt Oher because he was legally an adult and that their only option was a conservatorship.

"I want whatever Michael wants," Sean told the publication regarding ending the conservatorship, which according to the court documents was meant to end when Oher was 25 years old. (Oher is now 37.)

While the newly revealed details about the conservatorship put the entire premise of the 2009 film into question, Monday's court filings aren't the first time Oher has expressed discomfort about "The Blind Side."

Here's what Oher has said over the years about the controversial film.

2011: Oher says in his first book that he resented being portrayed in 'The Blind Side' as a 'dumb' kid who didn't know how to play football

As depicted in the 2009 film "The Blind Side," Oher was one of 12 children born to a mother who had addiction issues when a family friend helped him get into a local private school, Briarcrest Christian School — in part due to his impressive athletic prowess. That, according to Oher's new filing, is all accurate.

In real life and in the movie, Oher met the Tuohy children, Collins and Sean "SJ" Jr., and the Tuohy family often allowed Oher to stay at their house overnight. Per the court filing, when Oher was an 18-year-old adult and a rising senior in high school, Sean and Leigh Anne proposed the idea of adopting him.

In the movie, the Tuohys do adopt Oher, and he's later drafted to the NFL by the Baltimore Ravens in 2009. But Oher said in the new filing that he learned that he was actually put under a legal financial conservatorship, not adopted, in February 2023.

In his 2011 autobiography "I Beat The Odds," cowritten with sports reporter Don Yaeger, Oher says that he resented being portrayed as a "dumb" young man who didn't know how to play football until he met the Tuohys.

"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," he wrote, according to an excerpt published by NPR, adding that he didn't like that multiple scenes in the movie blatantly suggested he had to be "taught the game of football." Oher called the football details his "main hang-up with the film."

"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!'" he wrote, per NPR.

According to NPR's review of the book, Oher also makes it clear that multiple families helped him overcome the challenges of his situation, including some of his biological siblings, some previous foster families, and the families of other students at Briarcrest — particularly the Hendersons. (In Monday's court filing, Tony Henderson, the father of one of Oher's friends, is referred to specifically as the person who fought to get Oher into Briarcrest.)

2013: Oher says ahead of the Super Bowl that he's 'tired' of talking about the movie

Oher played for the Baltimore Ravens from 2009 to 2013, helping the team win the Super Bowl on February 3, 2013. At a media day ahead of the game, he voiced his frustration over the movie once again and reiterated that he always knew how to play football.

"I'm tired of the movie. I'm here to play football," Oher said, according to the Los Angeles Times. "Football is what got me here and the movie, it wasn't me. I always knew how to play football growing up. It was different personalities, stuff like that. Playing football is what got me to this point."

He also told the press that he didn't like talking about "The Blind Side" because he felt it "kind of takes away from my hard work on the field."

"I kind of feel a little bit underappreciated, but as long as my team and the guys in the locker room know what I bring to the table, it's all good," Oher said. He added that the Tuohy family would be in New Orleans to watch him play in the Super Bowl.

2015: Oher tells ESPN that the film negatively impacted his football career

After playing in the NFL for about six years, Oher, who was playing for the Carolina Panthers at the time, gave an interview to ESPN explaining why he thought "The Blind Side" had negatively impacted his professional career.

"People look at me, and they take things away from me because of a movie. They don't really see the skills and the kind of player I am," he told ESPN in 2015. "That's why I get downgraded so much, because of something off the field."

"This stuff, calling me a bust, people saying if I can play or not ... that has nothing to do with football," Oher continued. "It's something else off the field. That's why I don't like that movie.''

"That's taken away from my football,'' Oher continued. "That's why people criticize me. That's why people look at me every single play."

2023: In his latest book, Oher calls the movie the source of some of his 'deepest hurt and pain'

In Oher's latest book, "When Your Back's Against the Wall," which was published in August 2023 and also cowritten with Yaeger, he reflects on the lessons he's learned since getting married, having children, and retiring from the NFL.

"There has been so much created from 'The Blind Side' that I am grateful for, which is why you might find it as a shock that the experience surrounding the story has also been a large source of some of my deepest hurt and pain over the past 14 years," he writes in the book, per ESPN. "Beyond the details of the deal, the politics, and the money behind the book and movie, it was the principle of the choices some people made that cut me the deepest."

It's unclear if Oher knew about the conservatorship, which he said in the filing he'd discovered in February 2023, at the time he was writing the book.

While promoting the book on "The Jim Rome Show," Oher expanded on the details of "The Blind Side" that he doesn't like, noting again that he felt the film detracts from the work he put in to overcoming his circumstances.

He said that his biggest problem with the film was that it depicted him as someone who wasn't capable of reading or writing.

"Second grade, I was doing plays in front of the school," he said. "When you go to a locker room and your teammates don't think you can learn a playbook, that's heavy."