Michael Oher, inspiration for 'Blind Side': Major inaccuracies in the Oscar-winning story that made him famous

Professional football player Michael Oher – whose life story served as the inspiration for the 2009 Oscar-winning film “The Blind Side” – has revealed the film’s biggest inaccuracies.

The 38-year-old told the New York Times that the film turned him into a caricature he did not recognize. He is currently suing the Tuohy family for allegedly exploiting his name, image and likeness to promote speaking engagements that have earned them around $8 million over the past 20 years.

He says they benefited from the film, which won Sandra Bullock an Oscar but which portrays Oher as meek and helpless until the Tuohys intervene, he argues.

The film grossed $300 million and brought the Tuohys great fame.

But the Tuohys claim Oher is blackmailing them by demanding $15 million in royalties for the film.

Michael Oher has commented on the inaccuracies in the 2009 film “The Blind Side”

In the film, a character portraying Oher is taken in by the Tuohy family, played by Sandra Bullock and country singer Tim McGraw

Among Oher's complaints about the film – and Michael Lewis' 2006 nonfiction book of the same name – is that it makes him seem stupid and helpless before he moves in with the Tuohy family.

He said the book cost him a higher military position and the pay raise that came with it because it portrayed him as unintelligent.

“The NFL people wondered if I could read a playbook,” Oher told the New York Times.

After the film was released, Oher said, he also started seeing posts saying, “I'm stupid, I'm dumb.” He also noticed that “every article about me mentioned 'The Blind Side' as if it were part of my name.”

Now he is worried that the film could have a negative impact on his children.

“If my children fail to do something in class, their teachers will think, 'Their father is stupid – is that why they don't understand?'” he admitted.

The film portrays Oher as stupid and helpless before he moved in with the family

Oher, who played eight seasons as an offensive tackle in the NFL and won a Super Bowl with the Baltimore Ravens, also criticized Tuohys' description of when and how they picked him up.

Lewis' book states that Leigh Anne Tuohy noticed that Oher was living in a trailer with another black classmate, Quinterio Franklin, and demanded that he move in with her instead.

But Franklin's house was actually a prefab house.

“When you are rich and have certain things, I think you have a different view of the world,” Oher said.

“Maybe it looked like a trailer to Mrs. Tuohy.”

But in their own book, “In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving,” the Tuohys wrote that Oher moved in that spring and “suddenly, it seemed, the most sought-after football player in the country was living in an upstairs bedroom.”

Oher, however, claims he only moved in with the family that summer – when he was already one of the most sought-after college football recruits in the country.

The most serious error, however, is that both the film and the book claim that Oher had no idea how to play football when he first stepped on the field at a private school in Memphis, Tennessee, where the Tuohys' children attended.

In fact, it was the same season that Oher was named to the All-Metro team by The Commercial Appeal, Memphis's premier daily newspaper, the New York Times reports.

After that season, Oher was recognized as one of the top college football recruits in the country.

Oher played eight seasons as a starting offensive tackle in the NFL and won a Super Bowl with the Baltimore Ravens

He is now suing the Tuohys for allegedly exploiting his name, image and likeness to promote speaking engagements that have earned them around $8 million over the past 20 years.

Oher says today that he went along with the Tuohys' “story” for years because he felt that as a professional footballer, it was too much for him to tell a different story.

The 2009 film is based on the 2006 non-fiction book of the same name by Michael Lewis.

But after a knee injury, concussion and chronic migraines forced him to end his career as a professional footballer, he said he was “lost.”

He says Lewis, who also wrote the books “Moneyball” and “The Big Short,” was researching the importance of the left tackle position in football and the economic resources NFL teams devote to the position when he discovered that a potential NFL left tackle was living in the house of his old friend Sean Tuohy.

Lewis then described his old friend as someone who had an innate ability to instill confidence in his growing sons, and he was said to have taken special care of the few black athletes at the private school.

The book was subsequently made into an award-winning film, produced by a company controlled by the Tuohys' daughter's future father-in-law, and his daughter was executive producer.

Nevertheless, Lewis claims he told the story correctly.

He told the New York Times that he was confident that the people who witnessed Oher's story would have given him an accurate account of events, and argued that without the Tuohys, Oher would have faced a life of poverty or crime, even though he had no past criminal history.

“That's what everyone told me,” Lewis said. “He was on a very bad course.”

Both the book and the film falsely claim that Oher did not learn how to play football until he moved in with the family

Oher is now suing the Tuohys, arguing in court documents that the family is falsely claiming to have adopted him.

Instead, the couple sought to establish a conservatorship that would give them control over his finances and major life decisions.

The judge approved the request even though the Tuohys acknowledged that Oher had no known physical or mental disability, which is a requirement under Tennessee law for applying for guardianship.

The conservatorship remained in place for two decades, until the end of Oher's football career, but it is unclear how the Tuohys exercised the power it gave them.

Oher's lawyers, however, argue that the couple was able to profit from him in this way.

In November, a judge finally lifted the guardianship, but Oher is still demanding unspecified damages.

He claims that he did not derive adequate benefit from the production.

However, the Tuohys have stated that the money was divided among five people and that their two biological children each received an equal share.

They claim Oher gave verbal consent and the money would go directly to the couple and then be distributed to the others.

Sean and Leigh Anne state in court documents that Oher's share was just over $138,000.

Their lawyers claim he had received royalty checks before, but Oher says he did not receive the payments until he texted the Tuoyhs demanding the money.

The Tuohys have now filed a motion for partial summary judgment, which means dismissal of some of the claims.

A hearing is now scheduled for October 1. If a trial does take place, it will probably not take place until next year.