Topics: Film and TV, Sport, US News, Michael Oher, The Blind Side
'The Blind Side' real family have claimed Michael Oher tried 'shaking them down' for $15 million before this new lawsuit.
The former NFL star has filed a lawsuit against the Tuohy family, who were depicted in the 2009 movie starring Sandra Bullock.
Oher, who is played by Quinton Aaron in the film, is claiming he was never legally adopted by the family and that they instead used his life story to profit from him.
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In The Blind Side, we learn the ‘true story’ of the American football star who was a foster child in Tennessee and how his adoption by a wealthy white couple allowed him to bloom into a star athlete.
But Oher is alleging his ‘adoptive parents’ Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy made millions of dollars from him and actually ‘tricked him’ into signing to make them his conservators.
By doing this, it would allow the couple to have legal authority to make business deals in his name.
And while the Oscar-winning The Blind Side earned more than $300 million at the box office, Oher apparently received nothing while the Tuohy and their two birth children got a hefty amount.
According to the lawsuit, they got ‘$225,000’ plus ‘2.5 percent’ of the film’s 'defined net proceeds'.
But the Tuohy family is slamming Oher’s claims, calling his lawsuit a ‘shakedown effort’ after a previous attempt.
In a statement shared with TODAY, the couple’s attorney, Marty Singer, called the NFL star’s petition ‘outlandish’, ‘hurtful and absurd’.
Singer also stated that Oher has threatened the family in the past.
The statement read: “The idea that the Tuohys have ever sought to profit off Mr. Oher is not only offensive, it is transparently ridiculous.”
Singer says they treated the young Oher ‘like a son’, adding: “His response was to threaten them, including saying that he would plant a negative story about them in the press unless they paid him $15 million.”
The attorney added that the Tuohys have given him ‘an equal cut of every penny received from The Blind Side.'
Singer also said in the statement: “Even recently, when Mr. Oher started to threaten them about what he would do unless they paid him an eight-figure windfall, and, as part of that shakedown effort refused to cash the small profit checks from the Tuohys, they still deposited Mr. Oher’s equal share into a trust account they set up for his son.”
They claim Oher has considered lawsuits in the past, with other lawyers stopping ‘representing him once they saw the evidence and learned the truth’.
Singer’s statement also includes: “Additionally, in spite of the false allegation in the lawsuit, the Tuohys have always been upfront about how a conservatorship (from which not one penny was received) was established to assist with Mr. Oher’s needs, ranging from getting him health insurance and obtaining a driver’s license to helping with college admissions.
“Should Mr. Oher wish to terminate the conservatorship, either now or at anytime in the future, the Tuohys will never oppose it in any way.”
Following Singer’s statement for the family on 15 August, Oher’s attorney Don Barrett told NBC News: “We try cases in the courtroom based on the facts. We have confidence in our judicial system and in our client Michael Oher.
"We believe that justice will be served in the courtroom, and we hope to get there quickly.”
