Michael Lewis, author of “The Blind Side,” is speaking out on behalf of Sean Tuohy and Leigh Anne Tuohy, who were sued Monday by former NFL player Michael Oher, who alleges the couple exploited him as part of a financial fraud adoption scheme.
In an interview with The Washington Post In the study released Wednesday, Lewis claimed the problem was with Hollywood and not the Tuohys, adding that no one was being paid well. (Lewis says he also wrote two other books-turned-movies: Moneyball and The Big Short. website.)
“Everyone should be mad at the Hollywood studio system,” Lewis said. “Michael Oher should join the writers’ strike. It’s disgusting how the accounting works in Hollywood, but the money isn’t in the Tuohys’ pockets.”
Oher filed the lawsuit in Tennessee this week, alleging that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy never adopted him and instead tricked him into joining a conservatory position where the Tuohys could make financial decisions for him. Oher claims he didn’t get a fair share of the money for the film adaptation of his life, based on the Michael Lewis book.
Oher claims that the Tuohys and their two children received $250,000 for the film and 2.5% balances. Sean Tuohy claims that the Tuohy family – including Oher – each received $14,000 from Lewis’ share of the film’s profits.
Lewis told the Washington Post that half of the profits from the film, after taxes and family payouts, were about $70,000.
Lewis also denied this The Tuohys took advantage of Oher because they saw his potential as an athlete. He claimed that they chose the conservatory election route because they believed it was quicker than the adoption process.
“What makes me really sad is that I saw the whole thing up close,” Lewis said. “They showered him with resources and love. That he’s suspicious of them is breathtaking. The state of mind you have to be in to do that – I’m sorry.”
Lewis also said that Oher is no longer taking his share of the royalties. He believes the Tuohys put this money into a trust fund for Oher’s son.
Oher played in the NFL from 2009 to 2016 and won the 2013 Super Bowl with the Baltimore Ravens.
Oher said in his 2011 memoir I Beat The Odds that the Tuohys originally explained to him that guardianship “means pretty much the same thing as ‘adoptive parents,’ but that the laws are only written in a way which take into account the ages I’m interested in.” Oher was 18 when he signed the papers.
“The lie about Michael’s adoption is a lie by which fellow conservators Leigh Anne Tuohy and Sean Tuohy enriched themselves at the expense of their ward, the undersigned Michael Oher,” the court filing reads. according to ESPN. “Michael Oher discovered this lie to his chagrin and embarrassment in February 2023 when he learned that the conservatory work he had agreed to on the grounds that it would make him a member of the Tuohy family actually gave him no family connection to her procured the Tuohys.”
Martin Singer, a lawyer for the Tuohys, claimed that Oher threatened to go to the media if they didn’t give him $15 million. The Associated Press and TMZ reported.
Another attorney for the Tuohys, Randall Fishman, said Wednesday that the couple is ready to finish Oher’s conservatory AP.
Sean Touhy narrated the daily Memphian On Monday, he said he and his wife were “devastated” at news of the lawsuit.
“It’s troubling to think that we would make money off any of our children. But we will love Michael at 37 the same way we loved him at 16,” he added.