Sean Tuohy, whose life is the basis of “The Blind Side,” responded to a petition filed Tuesday by Michael Oher in which he requested an end to the Tuohy family’s conservatorship as well as a bar to their ability to use his image and likeness to make business deals.
“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.”
Oher’s petition claims that the Tuohy family never officially adopted him, and that they tricked him into giving up his ability to make financial decisions when he signed the conservatorship papers. The petition also details the financial gain of the whole Tuohy family from the dramatization of his life story in “The Blind Side” (2009) — a story that wouldn’t exist without him — including royalties for their two biological children. In addition to 2.5% residuals, Oher claims that the Tuohy family of four made $250,000 each.
“We didn’t make any money off the movie. Well, Michael Lewis (the author of the book ‘The Blind Side’) gave us half of his share. Everybody in the family got an equal share, including Michael,” Tuohy said. “It was about $14,000, each. We were never offered money; we never asked for money. My money is well-documented; you can look up how much I sold my company for.”
The Tuohy family also claimed that prior to Oher coming forth with “outlandish” and “hurtful” accusations, the former football player tried to get $15 million from them and threatened that if they didn’t he would “plant a negative story about them in the press,” TMZ Sports reports.
“In spite of the false allegation in the lawsuit, the Tuohys have always been upfront about how conservatorship (from which not one penny was received) was established to assist with Mr. Oher’s needs, ranging from getting him health insurance and and obtaining a driver’s license to help with college admissions,” the family said in a statement.
It continued, highlighting Oher’s conservatorship, which the family said was used to seal the movie deal with Fox: “Should Mr. Oher wish to terminate the conservatorship, either now or anytime in the future, the Tuohys will never oppose it in any way.”
Their family attorney, Marty Singer said the instance wasn’t the first time Oher has tried to a get money from the Tuohys. Singer said the family would never try to financially manipulate Oher.
“The notion that a couple worth hundreds of millions of dollars would connive to withhold a few thousand dollars in profit participation payments from anyone — let alone from someone they loved as a son — defies belief,” Singer said.
Tuohy, portrayed by Tim McGraw in the Oscar-winning film, described the conservatorship as a way to win over the NCAA when Oher was considering playing football at Ole Miss.
“Michael was obviously living with us for a long time, and the NCAA didn’t like that,” Tuohy said. “They said the only way Michael could go to Ole Miss was if he was actually part of the family.”
Tuohy, who played basketball for Ole Miss and supported the college, would qualify as a “booster” were Oher to attend his alma mater.
“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,’” Tuohy continued. “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.”
The petition claims that the Tuohys didn’t fully explain the difference between conservatorship and adoption when they presented the paperwork, which did not resemble adoption documents.
“It’s upsetting, but it’s life, what are you going to do? Certain people will believe us and certain people won’t. It’s hard because you have to defend yourself, but whatever [Michael] wants, we’ll do,” Tuohy added. “We’re not in this for anything other than whatever he wants. If he’d have said, ‘I don’t want to be part of the family anymore,’ we’d have been very upset, but we absolutely would have done it.”