Former NFL player Michael Oher has sparked controversy by claiming he was aced out of receiving profits from The Blind Side, the book and movie based on his life.
But lawyers for the Tuohy family now say that he received $100,000 from the film.
According to the Tennessean newspaper, the Tuohy’s lawyers said on Wednesday that Oher was paid $100,000 from the profits of The Blind Side, the same amount every family member received from the movie that chronicled their lives.
Attorneys Randy Fishman and Steven Farese Sr. said they would present the evidence and bank records showing that the family did not deprive Oher of money from the film.
Fishman added, “Michael got every dime, every dime he had coming.”
Leigh Anne Tuohy celebrates on the field after her adoptive son Michael Oher #74 of the Baltimore Ravens and the Ravens defeat the San Francisco 49ers 34-31 during Super Bowl XLVII at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on February 3, 2013, in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
Farese also pointed out that the family is independently wealthy apart from any profits from Oher’s story.
“They don’t need his money. They’ve never needed his money. Mr. Tuohy sold his company for $220 million,” Farese noted.
Martin Singer, another Tuohy attorney, claimed that the financial records prove their case and even said that Oher never cashed the checks he was given for the profits from the film.
The writer of the book that was optioned for the 2004 Hollywood film starring Sandra Bullock also said there were not a lot of profits from the movie rights. Author Michael Lewis said he got about $70,000 after taxes, as did the Tuohy family. The latter split the $70,000 five ways among the family, including Oher.
Leigh Anne Tuohy, whose life was chronicled in the movie “The Blind Side,” is a guest on KATIE, distributed by Disney-Walt Disney Television via Getty Images Domestic Television. (Photo by Lou Rocco/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images) KATIE COURIC, LEIGH ANNE TUOHY
Lewis also said that if people want to be mad at someone over money, they should be angry at the film industry.
“Everybody should be mad at the Hollywood studio system,” Lewis told the paper. “Michael Oher should join the writers strike. It’s outrageous how Hollywood accounting works, but the money is not in the Tuohys’ pockets.”
The Tuohy’s attorneys also said that the family is perfectly willing to end the conservatorship that Oher signed in 2004 if that is what he wants. They did not explain why the legal document is still active now that Oher is a 37-year-old man.
On Monday, Oher revealed a lawsuit against the Tuohy family, alleging they abused their power over his finances and robbed him of an unknown amount of money.
Oher was a standout high school football player in Memphis, Tennessee, in the early 2000s, but he also had a disadvantaged home life. The Tuohy family eventually took him in, and in time they told him they wanted to adopt him into their family as he sought a college football career. Their heartwarming story became a major motion picture in 2009, starring Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Tuohy, a role that won Bullock high acclaim.
As Breitbart Sports reported, the former NFL player now says that the Tuohy family took money that was rightfully his and misled him about adopting him into the family. He is suing them to recover any money owed to him and to reclaim power over his life.
The Tuohys responded that they were “devastated” over the accusations and insisted that the charges were false.
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