This week, Michael Oher sued Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, nineteen years after they didn’t tell him that they were putting him into a conservatorship. Oher had believed that the Tuohys adopted him when he was a teenager, but they only put him in a conservatorship and scammed him out his life rights. That’s the story, that’s the headline. But attached to that is Oher’s claim that the Tuohys ended up getting millions from The Blind Side. Oher was apparently kept out of the business stuff of the film, so he doesn’t know how much the Tuohys were paid, especially if they had a backend deal. Sean Tuohy claims that he hasn’t even made $40K off of the film, meanwhile sources told People Magazine exclusively that the family actually made about $700,000 from the film. The math isn’t mathing though.
Oher, who played football at the University of Mississippi and was later drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in 2009, alleges in his petition that each of the four members of the Tuohy family were paid $225,000 for the film plus 2.5% of the film’s proceeds. Yet “Michael received nothing,” said Oher’s petition, for a “story that would not have existed without him.”
The Blind Side made over $300 million at the box office and went on to earn a nomination for best picture at the 2010 Academy Awards, with Sandra Bullock taking home the best actress prize. A source close to the film tells PEOPLE the Tuohys have received approximately $700,000 total in rights, payments and profits, which was intended to be divided between the family members — Sean, Leigh Anne, their two biological children and Oher.
“The Tuohys have not received millions of dollars from the movie,” says the source. “They have not even received $1 million from the movie.”
[From People]
2.5% of the film proceeds, not just box office but DVD sales and rentals, would actually be in the millions. As I said, the math isn’t mathing, and Oher still claims that the family did not, in fact, give him a cut. I also think the Tuohys are focusing so much on how much they made off of the film because they know that focusing too much on their adoption lies makes them look even worse. Meanwhile, the Tuohys hired Marty Singer and Singer is already out here, smearing Oher:
The family at the center of The Blind Side, which chronicles Michael Oher’s life story out of poverty, has accused the retired NFL player of fabricating accusations that they lied about adopting him and cut him out of a deal for the rights to the book the film is based off of. A lawyer for the family says Oher tried to extort them out of $15 million and made the allegations “as a cynical attempt to drum up attention in the middle of his latest book tour.”
In a statement, Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy also confirm Oher’s claim that they negotiated a deal with 20th Century Studios giving them and their two children a lump sum and profit participation from the movie but say that they willingly split the proceeds with Oher.
“When Michael Lewis, a friend of Sean’s since childhood, was approached about turning his book on Mr. Oher and the Tuohys into a movie about their family, his agents negotiated a deal where they received a small advance from the production company and a tiny percentage of net profits,” says Marty Singer, a lawyer for the family, in a statement issued on Tuesday. “They insisted that any money received be divided equally. And they have made good on that pledge.”
The Tuohys say that they’ve given Oher an “an equal cut of every penny” received from The Blind Side. As part of his alleged extortion effort, he refused to accept his share of the money from the movie deal, the family claims. They say they still deposited the money into a trust account.
The statement also responds to accusations that the Tuohys tricked Oher into signing documents that appointed them as his conservators. They claim they’ve “always been upfront about how a conservatorship 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,” Singer says.
[From THR]
“As part of his alleged extortion effort, he refused to accept his share of the money from the movie deal, the family claims. They say they still deposited the money into a trust account.” So, the Tuohys claim that Oher planned an extortion effort for the better part of fourteen years, refusing to take “his cut” of the film’s profits for all that time because he would eventually sue the Tuohys? It makes no sense because the Tuohys story is bullsh-t. And again, if the conservatorship was a work-around for Oher’s college years and the NCAA rules, then why didn’t the Tuohys petition to remove the conservatorship when Oher graduated from Ole Miss IN 2009?? Why was the conservatorship still an active thing throughout his NFL career and up until today?
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Avalon Red.
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