Tuohy Family Responds To Blind Side’s Michael Oher’s Conservatorship Battle

Tuohy Family Responds to Michael Oher Conservatorship

“We’re devastated,” Sean Tuohy told the Daily Memphian. “It’s upsetting to think we would make money off any of our children. But we’re going to love Michael at 37 just like we loved him at 16.” He also said, that “everybody in the family got an equal share” of $14,000 when The Blind Side author Michael Lewis wrote the book. Sean Jr. estimated that he’s received an additional $60,000 to $70,000 “over the course of the last four or five years”

SJ who went to the same high school as Oher and welcomed him into the family revealed what he thought of the situation. “I want to preface this by saying I loved Mike at 16, I love [Michael] now at 37, and I’ll love him at 67,” Sean Jr. said on Barstool Radio. “If he says he learned that in February, I find that hard to believe. [I went back to] our family group texts … to see what things have been said. And there’s things back in 2020, 2021 [that] were like, you know, ‘If you guys give me this much, then I won’t go public with things.’ And so I don’t know if that’s true. I think everyone learned in the past year about the conservatorship stuff because of Britney Spears so maybe that’s the case.”

“Man, if I had $2 million in my bank account, it would be in my email signature and say, ‘Signed, SJ Tuohy, multi-millionaire,’” SJ continued. “I get it, why he’s mad. I completely understand. It stinks that it’ll play out on a very public stage. … You will never hear me say anything bad about Michael Oher in any capacity other than I’m upset that he feels the way that he does. I think some of the things that were mentioned in the probate or book or whatever I don’t necessarily agree with and or remember happening like that.”

As for when Oher and the Tuohy’s relationship started to fall apart, SJ said, “I don’t know the exact time — that’d be a question for him. There obviously is a time because you can go back and look at social media posts from 2015, 2016, [and] 2017 and everything’s fine and dandy. I think it builds up over time for him. And it’s hard.”

 SJ recognized that the movie “made a lot of money,” and hopes that Oher “gets everything that’s entitled to him legally,” but doesn’t “think it’s going to come in the form of the ESPN story.”

“Obviously, he’s the star of it. There is no story without him. He is the star of everything he’s done in his life,” he goes on to reference the SAG-AFTRA strike. “The same thing these writers and actors are pissed about now — it’s not crazy different. He wants more royalties. … Hollywood is going to screw people.”

SJ then claimed that the last time he talked to Oher was in 2021 and they texted “throughout the year, but not in the last couple of months, which makes sense now.” He also said he was “accusatory” of his parents “to some extent” when Oher first made his claims, and now believes “everything is documented.”

What Happened to Michael Oher?

What happened to Michael Oher? According to the court papers obtained by People, Oher did not sign adoption papers. The Tuohys had Oher sign legal papers that made them his conservators. The 2004 conservatorship filing, showed that Oher signed the papers despite being 18 years old at the time and having “no known physical or psychological disabilities.”

“Michael trusted the Tuohys and signed where they told him to sign,” the legal filing claimed “What he signed, however, and unknown to Michael until after February 2023, were not adoption papers, or the equivalent of adoption papers.”

“At no point did the Tuohys inform Michael that they would have ultimate control of all his contracts, and as a result Michael did not understand that if the Conservatorship was granted, he was signing away his right to contract for himself,” the filing says.

The conservatorship was supposed to be dissolved when Michael turned 25, but it was not. The former NFL player didn’t learn about this until earlier this year. He seeks to end the conservatorship. “Michael Oher discovered this lie to his chagrin and embarrassment in February of 2023, when he learned that the Conservatorship to which he consented on the basis that doing so would make him a member of the Tuohy family, in fact provided him no familial relationship with the Tuohys.”

“Since at least August of 2004, Conservators have allowed Michael, specifically, and the public, generally, to believe that Conservators adopted Michael and have used that untruth to gain financial advantages for themselves and the foundations which they own or which they exercise control,” the petition says. “All monies made in said manner should in all conscience and equity be disgorged and paid over to the said ward, Michael Oher.”

“Mike didn’t grow up with a stable family life,” Oher’s attorney J. Gerard Stranch IV said. “When the Tuohy family told Mike they loved him and wanted to adopt him, it filled a void that had been with him his entire life. Discovering that he wasn’t actually adopted devastated Mike and wounded him deeply.”

In response to the media reports surrounding the case, Oher made a statement, per The New York Post, “I am disheartened by the revelation shared in the lawsuit today. This is a difficult situation for my family and me. I want to ask everyone to please respect our privacy at this time. For now, I will let the lawsuit speak for itself and will offer no further comment.”

Did Michael Oher get paid for The Blind Side?

Did Michael Oher get paid for The Blind Side? According to the court filing, Oher allegedly did not receive profits from the film. The Tuohy’s allegedly constructed the movie deal to pay them and their two birth children substantial royalties as the film earned more than $300 million at the box office. The four Tuohy family members each made $225,000 plus 2.5 percent of “defined net proceeds” from the film. The filing seeks his “fair share of profits” in addition to “unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.”

In 2007, Oher allegedly signed a contract that gave away his life rights to the Tuohys “without any payment whatsoever.” Though now, he does not remember signing the contract, and if he did, he was not clear on its meaning.

“We divided it five ways,” the Tuohys wrote about their earnings in their 2010 book, In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving. According to ESPN, the Tuohys have denied making a lot money from the movie. They claimed they received a flat fee for the story and did not reap any of the movie’s profits, and what they did earn was shared with Oher.

“Mike’s relationship with the Tuohy family started to decline when he discovered that he was portrayed in the movie as unintelligent,” Stranch said. “Their relationship continued to deteriorate as he learned that he was the only member of the family not receiving royalty checks from the movie, and it was permanently fractured when he realized he wasn’t adopted and a part of the family.”

Oher criticized the movie for making him look less intelligent and his overall reputation. “There has been so much created from The Blind Side that I am grateful for, which is why you might find it as a shock that the experience surrounding the story has also been a large source of some of my deepest hurt and pain over the past 14 years,” he wrote in his book When Your Back’s Against the Wall. “Beyond the details of the deal, the politics, and the money behind the book and movie, it was the principle of the choices some people made that cut me the deepest.”

“People look at me, and they take things away from me because of a movie,” he told ESPN in 2015. “They don’t really see the skills and the kind of player I am. That’s why I get downgraded so much, because of something off the field.

“This stuff, calling me a bust, people saying if I can play or not … that has nothing to do with football. It’s something else off the field. That’s why I don’t like that movie.”

The movie was released in 2009 and nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Sandra Bullock won Best Actress for playing Leigh Anne Tuohy. “I regretted having taken the film. Like, I shouldn’t have done this,” Bullock said of taking on Oher’s life story during Oscar campaign season to the New York Times. “This is one of those moments that can sit in one hand with a couple of fingers that I left going, I have no idea what I did. I don’t know if it’s right. I don’t know if I gave what I needed to give, but I was spent by the time I left. And I did everything I could that I was able to do.”