Lawyer’s bombshell claim over ‘Blind Side’ paycheck

There has been a big twist in the “Blind Side” family’s legal scrap with an NFL star with incredible payment details emerging.

Michael Oher of the Baltimore Ravens and Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Tuohy. Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images.

Former NFL star Michael Oher received $100,000 from the profits of “The Blind Side” — just like every other member of the Tuohy family, lawyers for the family claim.

Lawyers for the Tuohys made the claim just days after Oher, 37, filed a petition in a Tennessee probate court seeking to end the conservatorship with the family, The New York Post reports.

Oher says the family duped him into signing over the legal use his name in business deals.

The former Baltimore Ravens Super Bowl winner alleged the Tuohys used their conservatorship to make millions in royalties from the 2009 Oscar-nominated film while he didn’t earn a cent.

Tuohy family legal representatives Randy Fishman and Steven Farese Sr. rejected Oher’s claims on Thursday, telling reporters “a pretty simple (accounting) process” will soon debunk the allegations, The Tennessean reported.

Michael Lewis, who wrote the book the blockbuster was based on, told the Washington Post that the Memphis family had not gotten rich from the movie — and that he split the $250,000 he was paid by 20th Century Fox with the family.

Oher, 37, claimed the conservatorship allowed the Memphis couple to retain legal power over him and that they made millions from ‘The Blind Side’.

Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy will enter into a consent order to end the conservatorship

Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy said they split their half of the deal evenly among the five members of the family, including Oher.

That and the 2.5 per cent of all future proceeds from the movie, which equate to about $500,000, have also been split among Sean, Leigh Anne, their two biological children (SJ and Collins), and Oher, they said.

“Michael got every dime, every dime he had coming,” Fishman said.

“They don’t need his money. They’ve never needed his money. Mr. Tuohy sold his company for $220 million,” Farese added.

The Tuohys’ lawyers also contended that Oher was well aware he had never been adopted.

Fishman said the former football star mentioned that the couple were his conservators three times in “I Beat The Odds: From Homeless, To The Blind Side,” his 2011 memoir.

“There was one major event that happened right after I graduated high school: I became a legal member of the Tuohy family,” Oher wrote.

Baltimore Ravens draft pick Michael Oher poses for a photograph with his family. Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images.

“It felt kind of like a formality, as I’d been a part of the family for more than a year at that point.”

“Since I was already over the age of eighteen and considered an adult by the state of Tennessee, Sean and Leigh Anne would be named as my ‘legal conservators,’” he wrote.

“They explained to me that it means pretty much the exact same thing as ‘adoptive parents,’ but that the laws were just written in a way that took my age into account,” Oher added.

“Honestly, I didn’t care what it was called. I was just happy that no one could argue that we weren’t legally what we already knew was real: We were a family.”

Farese said Oher has become “more and more vocal and more and more threatening” in recent years, adding that this is “devastating for the family.”

The Tuohys have called Oher’s allegations a shameful shakedown attempt, which comes after he and the family have been estranged for a decade.

The family previously said they set up the conservatorship to help Oher with health insurance, a driver’s license, and being admitted into college.

Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy didn’t simply adopt Oher because a conservatorship was the fastest way to satisfy the NCAA’s concerns that they weren’t simply steering him to Ole Miss, their alma mater, which he later attended, Fishman noted.

Michael Oher of the Baltimore Ravens and Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Tuohy. Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images.

The Tuohys have maintained that they only have Oher’s best interest at heart, even if it means dissolving the conservatorship.

“If that’s what he wants to do is terminate it, we’re glad to do so,” Fishman said. “Matter of fact, it’s our intent to offer to enter into a consent order as it relates to the conservatorship. Then, if they have any other issues, we’ll deal with them.”

He sought to have the conservatorship ended and asked for a full accounting of the money earned off the use of his name, including the blockbuster 2009 flick starring Sandra Bullock and the novel that inspired it.

Tuohys’ lawyers said Oher was well aware he had not been adopted.

Fishman said he mentioned that the couple was his conservators three times in “I Beat The Odds: From Homeless, To The Blind Side,” Oher’s first time in 2011.

Oher accused the couple of falsely representing themselves as his adoptive parents, saying he discovered in February that the conservatorship was not the arrangement he believed it to be.

The Tuohy’s lawyers also said the couple and Oher have been estranged for about a decade.

This article originally appeared in the New York Post and was reproduced with permission

Originally published as Lawyer’s bombshell claim over ‘Blind Side’ paycheck