Michael Oher texts show alleged Tuohy family shakedown: ‘Think how it will look’
The Tuohy family is backing up its claim they were blindsided by Michael Oher’s attempts to get them to cough up $15 million related to royalties from “The Blind Side” movie, according to legal documents.
The family claimed that Oher had threatened to “defame them on social media and/or TMZ as ‘fakes’ and ‘thieves’” if they didn’t pay, the docs stated according to TMZ.
The new documents were filed as part of the ongoing legal drama between the Tuohy family and Oher over his claims they never gave him his fair share of his royalties from the hit 2009 film.
According to the documents, Oher sent numerous texts claiming he was “robbed of fifty million+” before dropping the number
“If something isn’t resolved this Friday, I’m going to go ahead and tell the world, how I was robbed by my suppose to be [sic] parents. That’s the deadline,” Oher wrote in a text according to the legal docs.
He added: “Think how it will look when it comes out.”
Oher alleged he was “robbed” of over $50 million by the Tuohys and later lowered his offer to $10 million, TMZ reported the documents saying.
They also reported that the Tuohys declined to pay Oher his demands and that he raised it to $15 million.
“Now I want 15 after taxes,” the documents claimed Oher said in a text.
Previous court filings from the Tuohys legal team claimed to show that Oher had received payments from them related to royalties from the film totaling $138,311.
Evidence included a payment that was sent as recently as April, according to the filing in November.
Oher and the Tuohys had been the subjects of the blockbuster film that starred Sandra Bullock and told Oher’s story and his relationship with the Tuohy family.
The new court filings are not the first time that the Tuohy’s legal representatives have painted Oher to be someone who has tried to extort money from the family.
“Following the announcement of Oher’s bombshell lawsuit in August, attorney Marty Singer told TMZ of Oher’s alleged attempt to get $15 million out of the family.”
“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,” Singer said.
In a court filing in August, Oher claimed that he was misled by the Tuohy family into believing they adopted him when in reality they entered into a conservatorship agreement with him in 2004 at the age of 18.
A judge ended the conservatorship in September, but the legal squabble over money made related to the film and Oher’s story has continued to play out in court.
