Quinton Aaron’s 2026 began with a medical emergency that left him in a stroke-related coma. After waking up, he learned something else that shocked him even more: the woman he believed was his wife had allegedly been married to someone else the entire time.
Aaron, 41, is best known for portraying Michael Oher in The Blind Side, the sports drama that also starred Sandra Bullock, who won the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance.
In January, Aaron suffered a spinal stroke and spent four days unconscious on life support. While he was hospitalized, he says the people around him uncovered information that completely changed what he thought he knew about his marriage.
According to Aaron, his family told him that Margarita DeLeon—whom he believed he had legally married in Los Angeles about two years earlier—was not legally able to marry him because she was still married to someone else.
“She told me she had been divorced for 10 plus years,” he said to ABC. “She even told the person where we were getting married, ‘Oh yes, I have all the documents. I can email over to you the divorce decree.'”
Aaron explained that once the issue came to light, DeLeon was no longer allowed to make medical decisions for him. “That’s what eventually led to the doctors removing her from around me,” he said on Good Morning America.
He also said he considers it his “biggest mistake” that he didn’t personally verify the paperwork before marrying.
Aaron said he only learned the marriage may not have been valid because of the January health crisis. He claims his attorney discovered during the coma that DeLeon was still legally in a marriage dating back to 1992.
DeLeon, however, has pushed back on Aaron’s account in comments to ABC, saying she didn’t realize her divorce hadn’t been finalized prior to their December 2024 wedding.
Speaking to the news station, DeLeon shared: “When I told Quinton back in the hospital bed. I said to him, I said, ‘Bibi, this information that your family pulled up on me, you know, I wasn’t aware of it.'”
Aaron said that before the coma he still loved DeLeon, but the situation has left him with regrets about how he handled the relationship and the marriage process.
He said: “If I had a chance to do it over. I would have done my due diligence. I would’ve definitely done a lot more research.” Aaron added that going forward, the experience will influence how he approaches relationships.
Alongside the personal upheaval, he remains focused on recovery. Aaron is currently completing about three hours of rehabilitation therapy each day at a specialist facility in Atlanta, and he is also being treated for diabetes, which may have played a role in the stroke.
He said doctors have told him it could take a long time before he walks again. “The doctors projected that it could take months, it could be a year, or up to a year,” Aaron said.
Still, Aaron believes he can surpass that timeline, noting he has lost 200 pounds over the last year. “And I said, ‘I don’t claim that time frame. I’ll be walking a lot sooner than you think.’ You know, and that’s just how I believe.
“That’s how, you know, between me, my faith, and my relationship with God.”