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The ongoing saga between former NFL tackle Michael Oher and conservators Sean and Leigh Ann Tuohy appears to be headed for a conclusion.
The Tuohys plan to end their conservatorship of the former Ole Miss All-American, attorneys representing the couple announced Wednesday.
Oher recently filed a petition in a Tennessee court claiming that he was taken advantage of by the family in a scam to make money.
“The lie of Michael’s adoption is one upon which Co-Conservators Leigh Anne Tuohy and Sean Tuohy have enriched themselves at the expense of their Ward, the undersigned Michael Oher. Michael Oher discovered this lie to his chagrin and embarrassment in February of 2023, when he learned that the Conservatorship to which he consented on the basis that doing so would make him a member of the Tuohy family, in fact provided him no familial relationship with the Tuohys,” the court filing read according to ESPN’s Michael A. Fletcher.
Though Oher himself seems to have refuted those claims in his own memoir published in 2011.
“Since I was already over the age of eighteen and considered an adult by the state of Tennessee, Sean and Leigh Anne would be named as my ‘legal conservators’”, the passage read. “They explained to me that it means pretty much the exact same thing as ‘adoptive parents,’ but that the laws were just written in a way that took my age into account. Honestly, I didn’t care what it was called. I was just happy that no one could argue that we weren’t legally what we already knew was real: We were a family.”
It seems clear that Oher knew what he agreed to. Now, he may not have known the difference. But he did at least know they weren’t his adoptive parents.
It appears that the Tuohys have now had enough.
“They insisted that any money received be divided equally. And they have made good on that pledge,” Tuohy lawyer Martin Singer said in a statement. “The evidence — documented in profit participation checks and studio accounting statements — is clear: over the years, the Tuohys have given Mr. Oher an equal cut of every penny received from ‘The Blind Side.’ Even recently, when Mr. Oher started to threaten them about what he would do unless they paid him an eight-figure windfall, and, as part of that shakedown effort refused to cash the small profit checks from the Tuohys, they still deposited Mr. Oher’s equal share into a trust account they set up for his son.”
It’s a sad ending for both sides. But hopefully one that allows them to move forward with their lives.