‘The Blind Side’ subject Michael Oher says adoption by Tuohy family was a lie and he was cut out of money from movie

Oher was a ward of the state of Tennessee by the age of 11 and homeless as a child, according to the filing. A friend’s father helped Oher enroll in 2002 in Briarcrest Christian School, where he played basketball and football.

The families of classmates often let Oher, who fell through the cracks of a “broken social system,” stay in their homes, the petition said.

“Where other parents of Michael’s classmates saw Michael simply as a nice kid in need, Conservators Sean Tuohy and Leigh Anne Tuohy saw something else: A gullible young man whose athletic talent could be exploited for their own benefit,” the petition said.

Oher alleges that the summer before his senior year, after he became a legal adult in July 2004, the Tuohys offered him a place to live with their family in their home. The couple said they would legally adopt him, and Oher believed them, the petition said.

Oher learned only in February that documents the Tuohys asked him to sign under the belief that it was part of the “adoption process” were actually conservatorship papers that would strip away his legal rights, the petition said.

The Tuohys told him that because he was no longer a minor, the adoption paperwork was titled a conservatorship, the petition alleged.

“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 petition said.

The conservatorship was granted until Oher reached the age of 25 or until the court terminated the order, but the arrangement was never terminated, Oher’s petition said.

In addition to termination, Oher’s petition asks the court to issue an injunction barring the Tuohys from using his name and likeness.

A phone call to Sean Tuohy was not immediately returned Monday, but he told the Daily Memphian that he was “devastated” by Oher’s allegations and said the family did not “make any money” off “The Blind Side” film.

“It’s upsetting to think we would make money off any of our children,” he said. “But we’re going to love Michael at 37 just like we loved him at 16.”

Sean Tuohy did say that “The Blind Side” book author Michael Lewis “gave us half of his share,” but he maintained that “everybody in the family got an equal share, including Michael. It was about $14,000, each.”

Sean Tuohy also said the conservatorship was a route to helping secure Oher’s eligibility to play college football, saying that lawyers had advised the family “couldn’t adopt over the age of 18” and that “the only thing we could do was to have a conservatorship.”

He said he would have been willing to end the conservatorship if Oher wanted that.

“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,” he said.

An attorney for the Tuohys declined to comment. The Tuohys’ former representatives at Creative Artists Agency said they have not worked with the family since 2007.

Sean Tuohy Jr., known as SJ, told Barstool Sports that he believes the issues between Oher and the Tuohy family built over time. He alleged that Oher asked for money from the family around 2021.

He added that he will never say anything negative about Oher.

“I get it, why he’s mad, I understand,” SJ Tuohy said. “It stinks that it will play out on the public stage. … That part sucks, but oh well.”

SJ Tuohy also said that he was not aware of the details of the movie deal but knew that his father gave him a check a few years after the movie came out. He added that he did not know why his parents chose a conservatorship over adoption but assumed it was because of Oher’s age.

“There’s no, like, money being held anywhere. … There’s no power of attorney still being held,” he said. “I was accusatory of my parents to some extent, like I want to make sure I’m not defending the wrong side of this.”