Michael Oher ‘was paid $138,000 for his rights to The Blind Side’ according to new court documents filed by the Tuohy family in bitter legal row
Michael Oher was reportedly paid $138,000 for his rights to The Blind Side, according to a new lawsuit from the Tuohy family.
According to PEOPLECourt documents filed Wednesday show the retired NFL star received $138,311.01 in 16 installments spanning 16 years starting in 2007.
Former NFL player Oher filed a legal filing in August claiming he received nothing from the film and that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy “collectively received millions of dollars” while misrepresenting their curatorship.
Oher’s attorney has been contacted for comment. The film itself grossed over $300 million upon its release in 2009.
The conservatorship between Oher and the Tuohy family, which ended in 2004, was terminated by a judge in Tennessee at the end of September.
Michael Oher – pictured with Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy – was reportedly paid $138,000 for his rights to The Blind Side
Oher launched a bombshell lawsuit this year against the Tuohys and the terms of his conservatorship
In Tennessee, a conservatorship takes away a person’s power to make decisions for themselves, and is often used in the case of a medical condition or disability.
But Oher’s conservatorship was approved “despite the fact that he was over 18 years of age and had no diagnosed physical or psychological disabilities,” according to his petition.
Judge Kathleen Gomes of the Shelby County Probate Court said she was disturbed that such an agreement was ever reached. She said that in her 43-year career, she had never seen a conservatorship agreement with someone who was not disabled.
In August, Oher, 37, filed a petition in court accusing the Tuohys of lying to him by making him sign papers that made them his conservators instead of his adoptive parents nearly two decades ago. Oher wanted the conservatorship ended, the money he had made from his name and story to be written off in full, and he to be paid what was due to him, with interest.
He accused the couple of falsely representing themselves as his adoptive parents. He said he discovered in February that the conservatorship he had agreed to in 2004 was not the arrangement he thought it was — and that it gave him no family ties to them.
Oher claims that the Tuohys kept him in the dark about financial transactions involving his name, image and likeness throughout the 19-year term of the agreement.
The Tuohys have called the claims that they have enriched themselves at his expense bizarre, hurtful and absurd and part of a ‘shakedown’ of Oher.