Court doc: Oher was paid $138K in movie profits

Michael A. Fletcher, ESPNNov 9, 2023, 10:21 AM ET
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The couple accused by retired NFL star Michael Oher of cheating him out of proceeds from the blockbuster movie “The Blind Side” actually paid Oher more than $138,000 in profits made from the movie, according to a sworn document their lawyers filed in a Tennessee court on Wednesday.

The financial accounting, which had been ordered by a Shelby County probate court judge, said that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy paid $138,311.01 to Oher in 10 separate installments between June 2007 and April 2023. The payments represent Oher’s share of the profits made from the movie and the book that preceded it, according to a statement accompanying the accounting document filed by the Tuohys’ lawyers.

“By agreement between the family members including Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, their children SJ and Collins as well as Michael Oher, the book and movie proceeds were to be split five ways,” the statement said.

Far from cheating Oher, the Tuohys’ lawyers said in the statement, the couple “spent tens of thousands of dollars of their own money to support Mr. Oher during his high school and college years.”

The financial document included copies of tax forms showing that the Tuohys were paid more than $432,000 by Twentieth Century Fox, Alcon Film Fund and Left Tackle Pictures for the movie between 2007 and 2021. The document also included a ledger that purportedly lists payments the Tuohys made to Oher, as well as copies of checks and bank statements showing deposits the couple made to a bank account in the name of one of Oher’s children.

Oher’s attorneys did not respond to ESPN’s request for comment about the filing. The order that required the accounting said that Oher has until Nov. 28 to file any objections to the document.

The story of the Tuohys’ efforts to help raise Oher out of poverty to the NFL was immortalized in the movie “The Blind Side,” a film that grossed well over $300 million at the box office. In August, Oher filed a petition alleging that a central element of the story — that the Tuohys had adopted him — was a lie concocted by the family to enrich itself.

Instead of adopting him, less than three months after Oher turned 18 in 2004, the Tuohys tricked him into signing a document making them his conservators, which gave them legal authority to make business deals in his name, Oher’s petition alleges.

The Tuohys have vehemently denied that they cheated Oher out of any money, even as they have acknowledged that had never intended to legally adopt him. Their lawyers have said that the couple called Oher their adopted son “in the colloquial sense.”

Since the petition was filed, the court has ended the conservatorship and ordered the financial accounting. Beyond the money earned by the movie, Oher has asked the couple to pay him his portion of money the family made by using his name, image and likeness. He has also asked for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.