'Blind Side' Family Shows 'Menacing' Text Messages from Michael Oher as Court Battle Rages
The once-heartwarming tale of the Tuohy family taking in football star Michael Oher depicted iTun the famed 2009 movie “The Blind Side” has taken a turn toward tragedy as ex-NFL player Oher accuses the Tuohys of stealing money from him when he was in their care.
And on Monday, the public got a glimpse of how brutal things got.
The player’s inspiring story of growing up in poverty and working his way to fame and success as a top college football player at the University of Mississippi then a first-round NFL draft pick in 2009 was made into the hit film based on the 2006 book carrying the same name as the film. In 2012, Oher published his own book, “I Beat the Odds.”
But for more than a year, Oher has been accusing Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, the couple who took him in when he was a teen, of stealing money from him and lying to him since the film was released.
Oher, who is black, has claimed that the Tuohys, who are white, made millions off the hit movie starring Sandra Bullock and Quinton Aaron and never gave him his fair share of the proceeds. He has also accused the family — which took him in when he was a homeless teenager and helped support him through high school, a college football career, and into the NFL — of lying to him about wanting to adopt him.
However, Oher’s accusations of theft have struck the writer of the book that started everything as evidence that football has damaged the player’s brain. Author Michael Lewis says he is sure that the Tuohy family gave Oher all the money due him and that none of them ever earned more than “a few hundred thousand dollars” off the film.
Still, on one point, Oher seems to be at least partially correct. The Tuohys have often said in public that Oher was their “son” and that they intended to adopt him, but they never did. Instead, they arranged a legal conservatorship that started when Oher was 18, under which they controlled the football player’s finances.
Indeed, the family maintained this legal control of Oher’s finances until a court finally forcefully ended the legal status just this year, when Oher was 37 years of age.
The Tuohy family, though, has responded to the accusations that they lied by pointing out that the issue of adoption didn’t arise until Oher had decided to attend the University of Mississippi. Both Tuoys are graduates of Ole Miss and known recognized boosters of the program.
By then Oher was too old for adoption and a conservatorship was the closest thing to a familial relationship they could establish that would satisfy NCAA regulators, Sean Tuohy told The Daily Memphian in an interview published in August.
“They said the only way Michael could go to Ole Miss was if he was actually part of the family,” he said, according to CBS.
“…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.”
Nonetheless, Oher has persisted in his claims that the Tuohy family has spent years stealing his money and neglected to pay him his fair share of proceeds from the famous film.
It seems to be an accusation that does not hold water, though. Even the film’s producers say that the amount that the Tuohys say they passed on to the player seems to jibe with their own records of payouts to the Tuohy family.
Oher is still filing lawsuits against the family, though, On Monday, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported, the family is responding to some of his accusations by entering court filings containing some of the threats he allegedly made against them via “menacing” texts.
The Tuohys filed their most recent documents in Shelby County Probate Court, the Commercial Appeal reported.
The filing included texts they say Oher sent threatening to brand the family as thieves in stories on the gossip website TMZ and in a social media assault he said he would initiate unless they gave him a $15 million payout.
The filing claims that Oher initially demanded $10 million, but when they refused, he upped it to $15 million “after taxes.”
“It was 10 million now I want 15 after taxes,” a text message allegedly from Oher reads.
Oher also apparently felt that the Tuohys were in cahoots with FedEx founder Fred Smith, who was also the majority owner of Alcon Entertainment, which produced “The Blind Side.”
“Get with Fred and get my money together,” Oher supposedly wrote adding that the Tuohys were “thieves.”
“If something isn’t resolve (sic) this Friday, I’m going to go ahead and tell the world, how I was robbed by my suppose to be (sic) parents. That’s the deadline. Better call Fred and everyone else involved. Think how it will look when this comes out,” another text reads.
According to documents the Tuohys supplied to the court, each family member — Oher included — received $138,309.90 from the proceeds from “The Blind Side” movie.
Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy have described Oher’s accusations as an attempted “shakedown.”
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