There are many stories about the price people pay for fame and the toll it takes on relationships. None are as compelling as the lawsuit filed by Michael Oher and Sean and Leigh Anne Touhy of The big opportunity Fame. It’s a story about how fame changes everything and how movies can distort and harm the real people they’re based on.

To understand how such a good story could become so ugly, it is important to understand how the film came about. It is long forgotten that Michael Lewis’ 2006 book, The Blind Side: The Evolution of a GameIt wasn’t about the Touhys or Oher. It was about football strategy. Lewis had just published his 2003 bestseller on the economics of baseball, The art of winning – Moneyballand his latest attempt was to do the same for America’s most popular sport.

The book begins with the sack of quarterback Joe Theismann of the Washington Redskins by linebackers Harry Carson and Lawrence Taylor of the New York Giants in November 1985. The hit was recorded by The Washington Postit would change the way NFL management recruits linemen, setting off a bidding war for athletic offensive tackles who could protect the league’s most valuable asset: the quarterbacks. And protect them from the part of the field that the quarterbacks cannot see when they retreat to pass or stand in the pocket: their “blind side.”

This aspect of the book did not bring Lewis any sales, so the publisher tried a different approach: He published an excerpt from the book in The New York Times Magazine with Oher and the Touhys. The book was optioned and in 2009 it unexpectedly became a blockbuster movie, making Oher and the Touhys household names.

How did this success lead Oher to sue the Touhys in civil court in Memphis, Tennessee, and in the court of public opinion around the world? The person with the best insight is the author himself, who knows a lot about not only the economics of sports, but also the economics of the movie business.

“It was half football strategy and half football drama and it didn’t sell well, so the idea that it would become a film surprised me,” said Lewis 60 minutes. “The movie ends up being made by a small film company called Alcon Entertainment, owned by Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx, who happened to know the story because he lived in Memphis, and he said, ‘I’ll do it.’ He made it on a shoestring budget and made hundreds of millions of dollars.”

So where did all the money go? Did Lewis and the Touhys pocket millions at Oher’s expense? “I know that’s not true because the money (the Touhys) made from the film was basically my money and I only gave them half of it,” Lewis explained. “Initially, I sold the film rights for $250,000, which we split – $125,000 and $125,000 – and the Touhys split it by five with their children, which is one-fifth of $125,000, and that’s before agent fees and taxes.”

Oher’s share would have been about $14,000. Lewis then explained that the future royalties for each side would be $760,000. After taxes and agent fees, that was $400,000 for the Touhys – again divided by five. That was an additional $80,000 for Oher.

How did Lewis react when he first heard about the lawsuit? “I was a little shocked that (Oher) was suspicious of them. I watched that relationship for almost three years, it was loving and he was like part of the family. And if they had a motive other than taking care of this kid, they were probably happy that he was playing at their alma mater, Ole Miss. But that was about it.”

Lewis concluded with a broader view of the conflict. “The Touhys themselves made hundreds of millions of dollars in the fast food business. Michael Oher made $35 million as a football player. It’s so sad to see something that caused problems because of its success. The success and the perception that there was this big pot of money created this divide.”

One thing is for sure: Oher had a successful career in the NFL, and the Touhy family played a part in that success. That is not my opinion. In his 2011 autobiography, he wrote: I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness to the Blind Side and BeyondA bestseller for seven weeks, Oher dedicated the book to the family he is now suing: “To the Tuohy family, you are truly a blessing to me. Thank you for helping me make my dreams a reality.”

So what has changed? The economics of the movie business may have fueled Oher’s complaint. It’s hard for the average person to understand how a blockbuster can leave such a small percentage to the author or the book’s protagonists, unless you’ve spent some time in the byzantine world of Hollywood finance and accounting.

Oher’s deeper complaint was with the film itself and its portrayal of him as a silent, helpless, stupid young man. One scene epitomizes this caricature, the one in which 10-year-old Sean Tuohy Jr. pushes condiment bottles around the kitchen table to teach Oher football positions. This scene was, of course, not in Lewis’ book.

Oher told the Times Magazine last Sunday that he hadn’t seen the film until the Baltimore Ravens team chaplain persuaded him to. “My reaction is hard to describe,” Oher said. “To be honest, it seemed kind of weird to me, like it was a comedy about someone else. I didn’t get it. But social media just started growing, and I started seeing things that made me feel stupid. I’m stupid.”

In his 2003 book When your back is against the wall: fame, football and lessons from a life full of adversity, Oher wrote about the pain and hurt the film caused him. “After the film came out, the narrative downplayed some of the qualities that make me who I am. That I am self-taught. That I am intuitive. That I work for things. The fictional story swept all that away. For the sake of a better story, the film suggested that some of the traits that most define me are not true,” he wrote.

In the same book, Oher admitted to struggling in recent years with obesity and issues related to concussions from his football days. “I found myself on hard times again,” he wrote. “The struggles I’ve been through over the past few years – job loss and struggles with mental health – haven’t really been shared with the public.”

Who knows what really happened to prompt Oher’s attacks on the Touhys, who have remained largely silent beyond the accusation that they were threatened with blackmail by the man they once considered part of their family. If there are two things we know almost for sure, it’s that the Touhys and Lewis didn’t steal anything from Oher. And that the real betrayal – which Oher will struggle with his entire life – was the liberties the screenwriters of The big opportunity when he portrayed Oher as a simpleton.

This is a story Lewis might want to write about in his next book. On second thought, maybe not.