Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy’s drama with Michael Oher continues as the family is now accusing him of extortion.
According to court documents obtained by Us Weekly, Sean, 64, and Leigh Anne, 63, shared a series of alleged messages from Oher, 37, calling them “thieves,” demanding they pay him $10 million otherwise he would go public with their dispute over their earnings of The Blind Side.
“If something isn’t resolved this Friday, I’m going to go ahead and tell the world, how I was robbed by [supposed] to be parents,” Oher allegedly wrote. “That’s the deadline.”
The messages also allegedly showed that Oher gave the Tuohys his lawyer’s contact information, prompting them to reach out if they “want to negotiate.” Oher later increased the amount he was seeking from $10 million to $15 million after taxes. The Tuohys’ responses to Oher’s text messages were not shown in the docs.
In the filing, the Tuohys argue that Oher “should be denied” a temporary injunction as the family are “not engaged in commercial use of” Oher’s name. Last month, the Tuohys removed all mention of Oher from their website. Per the docs, the Tuohys also state that Alcon Entertainment, who produced The Blind Side, provided an accounting filed in November that both the Tuohys and Oher earned $138,309 for the film.
Us has reached out to Oher for comment.
The family’s legal woes began in August after Oher alleged that the Tuohy family never adopted him despite how their story was told in the 2009 Oscar-nominated film, The Blind Side. Instead, Oher claimed that earlier this year he learned that Leigh Anne and Sean convinced him to make them his conservators which would give the family legal authority to make business deals in his name.
Oher claimed that he agreed to the conservatorship “on the basis that doing so would make him a member of the Tuohy family” but further alleged that it actually “provided him no familial relationship with the Tuohys.”
In the initial filing, Oher alleged that the Tuohys financially profited off him and his story, thanks to the success of the film. In addition to seeking the termination of the conservatorship, Oher asked that the couple pay him his “fair share of profits” and “unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.”
Sean, for his part, claimed that the conservatorship was necessary in order for Oher to attend and play football at the University of Mississippi, Ole Miss, where the Tuohys both attended.
Oher later alleged that Sean and Leigh Anne “negotiated a contract” for The Blind Side on his behalf. However, Oher was unaware of what the deal entailed and claimed to not have signed a contract.
“The co-conservators never presented [Oher] with any written documentation to show any earnings they derived from the movie,” the documents read. “[He] has been kept in the dark, forced to rely on the verbal assurances from his co-conservators.”
In September, a judge ruled that Oher’s conservatorship had come to an end after nearly two decades.
In November, the Tuohys filed paperwork, according to People, revealing that Oher was paid more than $138,000 for The Blind Side with the final installment of $8,480.10 being paid in April of this year.
