Does Michael Oher have a relationship with the Tuohy Family

Posted by Carisa Kissane on Wednesday, May 22, 2024

Does Michael Oher have a relationship with the Tuohy Family – A lawsuit filed by NFL player Michael Oher has made the larger-than-life scenario that inspired the movie The Blind Side, which debuted 14 years ago to universal (and shaky) acclaim, seem downright implausible. And regrettably not in a positive way.

The 2009 movie portrayed Oher’s purported rise from poverty to NFL prominence with the help of the (again, alleged) backing of a prosperous white family, the Tuohys. A significant aspect of Oher’s tale was also emphasized in the movie: the assertion that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy adopted Oher into their family a few months after he turned 18.

However, Oher is now asserting that he was never adopted at all. Instead, he claims that the Tuohys used coercion to get him to sign another equally significant document when he was 18—a collection of legal documents that granted them total control over his funds and business affairs. Oh, and they allegedly did this just as Oher was going to become one of the best collegiate football players in the country, making him an extremely valuable commodity. This is what we do know.

When did Oher understand that the Tuohy family had not adopted him?

J. Gerard Stranch IV, Oher’s attorney, claims that Oher didn’t start having doubts about his friendship with the Tuohy family until after the release of The Blind Side, when he saw how he was represented in the movie. It was specifically implied that Oher had intellectual problems, which isn’t the situation in reality. In fact, Oher’s aptitude in the classroom helped him gain admission to the Memphis private school where he finally met the Tuohy kids and their parents.

Oher eventually hired a lawyer with the aim of discovering whether the Tuohy family had received more money for the movie than they claimed they had in the years after the release of The Blind Side. However, Oher was too preoccupied with his burgeoning NFL career to spend much time unpacking what had or hadn’t happened with the Tuohys in the years after the movie’s release.

Oher discovered through his attorney that they had actually obtained much more lucrative transactions than they had claimed. (They initially stated that they split a fixed fee from the movie with five people, including Oher, but the lawsuit petition now claims that the four Tuohy family members each received $225,000 and 2.5 percent of the movie’s net earnings.

Oher discovered an even more shocking fact as a result of his investigation: He had never been adopted in the first place.

According to Oher’s lawyer, according to ESPN, “Mike’s relationship with the Tuohy family started to decline when he discovered that he was portrayed in the movie as unintelligent.” Their bond was irreparably damaged when he found he wasn’t adopted or a member of the family, and it only became worse as he discovered he was the only family member who wasn’t collecting royalties from the movie.

Oher’s latest lawsuit requests punitive damages against the Tuohy family.

After leaving the NFL in 2017, Oher married Tiffany Roy, his longtime love, in 2022. Two boys and two girls make up the couple’s family of four. The timing of Oher’s public disclosure has a certain poetic irony: Now that he’s settled with a family of his own, he’s prepared to confront the family who reportedly feigned to accept him into theirs.

Oher states in the petition that the Tuohys persuaded him to sign the paperwork for a conservatorship in Shelby County, Tennessee. He claims they informed him that it was the same as adoption but that they had to go about it in this manner because he was older than 18. Oher claimed he cheerfully signed the documents because he believed he was joining the Tuohy family, but the documents actually made sure he had no legal connection to them at all and gave them future financial authority over him.

According to the legal document, “Co-Conservators Leigh Anne Tuohy and Sean Tuohy have enriched themselves on the lie of Michael’s adoption at the expense of their Ward, the undersigned Michael Oher.” In February 2023, “Michael Oher learned that the Conservatorship to which he consented on the basis that doing so would make him a member of the Tuohy family, in fact provided him no familial relationship with the Tuohys, to his chagrin and embarrassment.”

Now, there are a few reasons why Oher has submitted this petition. He wants to officially end the conservatorship first. The Tuohy family has been compensated financially in connection with his name and likeness, and he secondly wants a complete accounting of all of that money. Finally, he demands that the Tuohy parents give him a portion of those earnings in addition to an undisclosed sum as punitive damages.

Although the Tuohy family has not yet addressed any of the claims mentioned in the petition, their attorney has confirmed they plan to do so in the upcoming weeks.

The Tuohys have frequently mentioned Oher as their adopted son throughout the years, frequently in ways that directly benefited their family’s finances, such as through their foundation, their written works, and speeches. Leigh Anne has posted images of Oher to her Instagram profile as recently as 2020, referring to him as her “Super Bowl MVP.”

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