‘The Blind Side’ Legal Battle: Tuohy Family Reacts to Michael Oher’s Allegations

UPDATE: The Tuohys' lawyer Marty Singer tells TMZ that prior to the lawsuit, Oher threatened to go to the press if they didn't pay him $15 million. Singer said the family denies Michael's allegations and hope to patch things up, however, "they will not hesitate to defend their good names, stand up to this shakedown and defeat this offensive lawsuit."

The Tuohy family is responding to a lawsuit brought by their “adopted” son, former NFL player Michael Oher.

The Tuohys inspired the 2009 movie “The Blind Side,” about a family who adopted a foster child and helped him with his football career. It was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar and Sandra Bullock won Best Actress for playing matriarch Leigh Anne Tuohy.

Oher now claims that the family never adopted him, but instead tricked him into a conservatorship that allowed them to make millions off the royalties from the movie.

The athlete told “Extra” in a statement, "This is a difficult situation for my family and me. I want to ask everyone to please respect our privacy at this time. For now, I will let the lawsuit speak for itself and will offer no further comment."

Leigh Anne’s husband Sean, who was played by Tim McGraw, is speaking out to The Daily Memphian.

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

Tuohy insisted that they couldn’t adopt Michael because he was 18, and that the conservatorship was put in place to abide by college football rules. According to Tuohy, the conservatorship had nothing to do with the movie.

Sean, who is a booster at the University of Mississippi aka Ole Miss, explained, “Michael was obviously living with us for a long time, and the NCAA didn’t like that. They said the only way Michael could go to Ole Miss was if he was actually part of the family. I sat Michael down and told him, ‘If you’re planning to go to Ole Miss — or even considering Ole Miss — we think you have to be part of the family. This would do that, legally.’”

He went on, “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.”

Tuohy also shot down Oher’s claims that each of the family members made $250,000 from the film, as well as residuals.

Sean, a sports commentator and restaurateur, is reportedly worth $50 million.

“We didn’t make any money off the movie,” Touhy said. “Well, Michael Lewis, the [author of the book] gave us half of his share. Everybody in the family got an equal share, including Michael. It was about $14,000 each.”

He went on, “I will say it’s upsetting that people would think I would want to make money off any of my children.”

Moving forward, Sean said of Michael, “Whatever he wants, we’ll do.”

“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.

Are they willing to end the conservatorship? Tuohy claimed, “I want whatever Michael wants."

According to papers obtained by “Extra,” Michael claims in the filing, "The lie of Michael's adoption is one upon which Co-Conservators Leigh Anne Tuohy and Sean Tuohy have enriched themselves at the expense of their Ward, the undersigned Michael Oher. Michael Oher discovered this lie to his chagrin and embarrassment in February of 2023, when he 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."

Sean’s son Sean Tuohy Jr. also spoke out to Barstool Radio on Monday.

He said, “I’m gonna preface this by saying that I love Mike at 16, I love Mike at 37, and I [will] love him at 67.”

“There’s not gonna be any dossier or thing that happens that is going to make me say, ‘Screw that guy.’ That’s not the case,” Tuohy Jr. said.

He does not accept, however, that Oher just learned of the conservatorship earlier this year. “If he says he found out in February, I find that hard to believe,” he said.

Tuohy Jr. explained, “I went through my family group texts today to see what had been said. There were things in, like, 2020 or 2021 that said, ‘If you guys give me this much, then I won’t go public with things.’”

He went on to say that he never made very much money off “The Blind Side,” estimating he received around $60,000-$70,000 in royalties.