The problem was that she was rarely off drugs and working, so Oher was a nomad from an early age. “When my mother was off drugs and working, she would remember to buy groceries and there would be a mad scramble to grab whatever you could before anyone else got to it,” he wrote in his 2011 memoir, I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness to The Blind Side and Beyond. His father disappeared early on, while his mother, Denise, struggled with addiction for many years. He was one of 12 children born to a mother who had fallen victim to the cheap and ultra-addictive narcotic, which set him along a troubled path from the start. Oher was born in 1986, right smack in the middle of the crack cocaine epidemic that swept the United States’ inner cities. Here’s how The Blind Side stacks up to the real story, what Oher has said about the movie over the years, and the legal turmoil brewing more than a decade after its release. And now, Oher says he didn’t earn any money from the film, even as the family who took him in when he was a teenager has profited, according to a court petition filed Monday.

Bullock won an Oscar for her performance in the Best Picture–nominated film.Ī smash hit that made over $300 million at the box office, The Blind Side took some liberties with the particulars of Oher’s life story. The movie, written and directed by John Lee Hancock, traces Oher’s journey from homeless teenager to Division I All-American left tackle for Ole Miss.

After all, it’s hard to outshine a blockbuster success, especially one starring Sandra Bullock.īefore Oher spent eight years in the NFL, he was the subject of acclaimed author Michael Lewis’ 2006 book, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, and its big-screen adaptation, The Blind Side. Michael Oher might be the only Super Bowl champion to be more famous for being a character in a movie than, well, being a Super Bowl–winning football player.

Movies like casino The Blind Side