The Tennessee family that claimed to have adopted ex-NFL player Michael Oher spoke out after Oher filed a petition against them and revealed some damning information.
Oher, who was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the first round of the 2009 NFL Draft, filed a petition in a Tennessee court on Monday to end the 2004 conservatorship, alleging that he learned in February 2023 that the family had never legally adopted him.
His story would be immortalized in “The Blind Side,” a 2009 film that was nominated for a handful of Academy Awards and got Sandra Bullock an Oscar.
Sean Tuohy recently spoke out after the lawsuit to reveal why the family was unable to adopt Oher.
“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,’” Tuohy said. “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.”
In 2004, Oher entered the conservatorship, which he allegedly understood as a form of legal adoption.
“At no point did the Tuohy’s inform Michael that they would have ultimate control of all his contracts, and as a result Michael did not understand that if the Conservatorship was granted, he was signing away his right to contract for himself. Michael was falsely advised by the Tuohy’s that because he was over the age of eighteen, that the legal action to adopt Michael would have to be called a ‘conservatorship’ but it was, for all intents and purposes, an adoption.”
Click on ‘Follow Us’ and get notified of the most viral NFL stories via Google! Follow Us
Oher also claimed that he did not financially benefit from the movie “The Blind Side” but that the Tuohy family did.
Tuohy said the family would end the conservatorship if that’s what Oher wants, and added that the only money the family made from the movie was from Michael Lewis, the author of the book “The Blind Side.”
He said that everyone “got an equal share, including Michael [Oher].”
He said the family had remained close with Oher throughout much of his NFL career but noticed distance building about a year and a half ago.
“No question, the allegations are insulting,” Tuohy said of the suit. “But, look, it’s a crazy world. You’ve got to live in it. It’s obviously upset everybody.”
The petition detailed the struggles Oher experienced early in his childhood, and how Oher came to know the Tuohys, whose children went to school with Oher at Briarcrest Christian School.
