Senator Tommy Tuberville Is Still Making Money From 'The Blind Side'

U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville made $1,750 in 2022 as part of annual residuals received from his appearance in the 2009 football film The Blind Side, according to financial disclosures.

The film has reentered the spotlight due to Michael Oher, the ex-National Football League (NFL) player about whom the film is based, recently filing a legal petition claiming that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy—whose family is depicted in the film—never adopted him and tricked him into conservatorship. He has accused them of profiting from his situation and career.

The surprise box office smash based on the 2006 novel of the same name followed Oher's journey from poverty to star athlete at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), and later a longtime NFL starter and Super Bowl champion with the Baltimore Ravens.

It grossed approximately $256 million domestically and $309 million worldwide, garnering a Best Picture Academy Award nomination. It also secured actress Sandra Bullock's first Oscar for Best Actress in 2010, in addition to Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards that same year.

Tuberville, who at the time of his film appearance was Auburn University's head football coach, has represented Alabama in the U.S. Senate since his 2020 election victory.

He was one of five college football coaches to appear, joined by Nick Saban, then at Louisiana State University (LSU) and currently at the University of Alabama; Phillip Fulmer, formerly of the University of Tennessee; Ed Orgeron, then at Ole Miss; Houston Nutt, then at the University of Arkansas; and Lou Holtz, then at the University of South Carolina.

In 2017, Tuberville told Auburn sports publication The War Eagle Reader that he and the other coaches filmed for three or four days in Atlanta, Georgia.

"Fred Smith, who owns FedEx, bought the movie for his daughter [Molly Smith]," Tuberville said. "She's a producer, has her own company. He called and said, 'Coach, we want all the original guys in there to make it better.' I said, 'Sure.'

"You had to join the Screen Actors Guild, I was already a member. If you do a commercial for Coke or Ford you have to be a Screen Actors Guild member. He called, he said, 'We're hoping to just do a hundred million to break even.'"

Each coach who filmed was also given $25,000 or $50,000 to give to charity, according to Tuberville.

"I started out getting about $2,000 every quarter for residuals," he added. "I'm down to about two or three hundred a quarter now. Mailbox money. I can't imagine what those actors get."

Tuberville has not publicly commented on the allegations made by Oher, who along with Tuberville is on the ballot to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame's 2024 class, according to an announcement made in June by the National Football Federation.

Tuberville started his collegiate coaching career at Ole Miss in 1994, the first of four head coaching stints. He ultimately resigned from his last college job at the University of Cincinnati in 2016.

Sean Tuohy has spoken out since Oher's claims and lawsuit, telling Al.com that the family is "devastated."

"It's upsetting to think we would make money off any of our children," he said. "But we're going to love Michael at 37 just like we loved him at 16."

The conservatorship was linked to Oher's college football eligibility, Tuohy added, saying that the NCAA "didn't like" that Oher was living with the family.

"They said the only way Michael could go to Ole Miss was if he was actually part of the family," he said. "I sat Michael down and told him, 'If you're planning to go to Ole Miss—or even considering Ole Miss—we think you have to be part of the family. This would do that, legally.'"

Touhy added, "We contacted lawyers who had told us that we couldn't adopt over the age of 18. The only thing we could do was to have a conservatorship. We were so concerned it was on the up-and-up that we made sure the biological mother came to court."

Sean Tuohy Jr., the son of Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, told Barstool Sports earlier this week that he understands Oher's frustration and was empathetic to it. But he denied that his family banked "$2 million" off the film.

"Man, if I had $2 million in my bank account, it would be in my email signature and say, 'Signed, SJ Tuohy, multi-millionaire,'" he said.

Barstool Sports owner and founder Dave Portnoy rebutted, saying that Oher's concerns raise questions about where the money from the successful film has gone.

"Somebody clearly is making a ton of the money off that movie, and he's not seeing any of it," Portnoy said. "Listen, if someone made a movie that I thought was about me, and I see it sold $300 million [at the] box office and I don't see anything, I could see how that would upset me."

Oher's lawsuit has spawned some social media backlash against Bullock, who played Leigh Anne Tuohy, with some users imploring her to "give her Oscar back."

Quinton Aaron, who played Oher in the film, has defended Bullock against the criticism.

"To make a statement like that doesn't make any sense," Aaron said, according to TMZ. "Sandra Bullock didn't have anything to do with the real story that we're reading as of right now."

Newsweek reached out to Tuberville via email for comment.