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The story behind The Blind Side continues to get more interesting by the day.
Michael Oher has alleged that much of the 2009 film’s story is untrue and is seeking damages from the Tuohy family. Now, the family has responded to Oher’s allegations through their attorney Marty Singer claiming that he threatened the couple –Sean and Leigh Anne — if they didn’t cough up a major bag.
“They have continued to treat him like a son and one of their three children,” Singer says. “His response was to threaten them, including saying that he would plant a negative story about them in the press unless they paid him $15 million.”
Singer says this is a broken record because Oher has tried to take legal action before but lawyers see through his case once evidence is irrefutable.
“[Michael] has actually attempted to run this play several times before — but it seems that numerous other lawyers stopped representing him once they saw the evidence and learned the truth,” Singer revealed. “Anyone with a modicum of common sense can see that the outlandish claims made by Michael Oher about the Tuohy family are hurtful and absurd. The idea that the Tuohys have ever sought to profit off Mr. Oher is not only offensive, it is transparently ridiculous.”
Singer says that the Tuohys received some upfront money from the production company before the film was made and a small percentage of the profits once it was released, adding that “they insisted that any money received be divided equally. And they have made good on that pledge.”
While the truth about the money has yet to be determined, the Tuohy family did admit that instead of adoption, Oher was actually under a conservatorship.
Oher signed the paperwork when he was 18, thinking he was being adopted, and it enabled the family to shop around a movie about his life that portrayed them as saviors. The film would be successful and garner more than $300 million in box offices around the world and earned Sandra Bullock a Best Actress Oscar.
Bullock has since responded to the allegations as well, with the Daily Mail reporting she’s dismayed.
“She hates that such a wonderful story, a spectacular movie, and a spectacular time in her life now has been tainted,” the source revealed. “Now people won’t watch it and if they do, they will have a completely different reaction to its original intention.”
The controversy began Monday when Oher alleged the family did not adopt him and tricked him into signing documents that gave them overwhelming control of his financial gains from the movie. He learned the truth about the conservatorship in February 2023 after signing it in 2004.
See how social media reacted to the initial news of the lawsuit below.
Tuohy Family Responds To Michael Oher’s ‘The Blind Side’ Allegations, Says He Threatened Them was originally published on cassiuslife.com
