Michael Oher breaks silence: His true feelings on The Blind Side and Tuohy family conservatorship

Michael Oher, the former NFL star whose life inspired the film The Blind Side, is speaking out for the first time since filing a lawsuit against Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, which led to the termination of his conservatorship and accusations that the family exploited his image for financial gain.

In a new interview with The New York Times Magazine published on Aug. 18, over a year after initiating the lawsuit, Oher reflected on his time living with the wealthy Memphis family. He expressed feelings of betrayal, contrasting the way the 2009 film depicted his life with the reality of his experiences.

“The first time I heard ‘I love you,’ it was Sean and Leigh Anne [Tuohy] saying it,” Oher shared. “When that happens at 18, you become vulnerable, you let your guard down and then you get everything stripped from you. It turns into a hurt feeling.” 

After a pause, he added, “I don’t want to make this about race, but what I found out was that nobody says ‘I love you’ more than coaches and white people. When Black people say it, they mean it.”

Though Oher, now 38, acknowledged the comfort and care the Tuohys provided him, including buying clothes and arranging a tutor to make him eligible for college football, he criticized The Blind Side for giving him a public identity that didn’t reflect who he truly was, both as a person and an athlete.

He revealed that he didn’t attend the film’s premiere but watched it about a month later. “It’s hard to describe my reaction. It seemed kind of funny to me, to tell you the truth, like it was a comedy about someone else,” Oher said. The movie’s portrayal of him as less intelligent than he actually is had lasting consequences, with some NFL professionals questioning his abilities. “I started seeing stuff that I’m dumb,” he recalled, adding that even today, he worries about how this portrayal might affect his children.

Oher emphasized that his lawsuit wasn’t motivated by money, despite claiming that the Tuohys and their two children collectively made millions from The Blind Side while he received nothing. He stated that he had focused on his NFL career and had put the situation with the Tuohys on the back burner.

Now, Oher is working on rediscovering who he was before The Blind Side and moving forward. "I want to be the person I was before The Blind Side, personality-wise,” he said.

Following Oher's lawsuit in August, Judge Kathleen Gomes of the Shelby County, Tenn. Probate Court dissolved the conservatorship the Tuohys had established in 2004 when Oher was 18. The conservatorship had given the family control over his money and major life decisions, even though Oher had no known disabilities, which is typically required by Tennessee law. Gomes remarked that, in her 43-year career, she had never seen a conservatorship like this involving a non-disabled person. The remainder of Oher's lawsuit is still ongoing.