Sean Tuohy Jr., better known as “SJ,” claimed in an interview this week that Michael Oher threatened the Tuohy family around 2020, 2021, a few years prior to the legal petition the former offensive lineman filed in court on Monday.
Oher, who was homeless but taken in by the Tuohy family when he was in high school, filed a legal petition in Shelby County court in Tennessee on Monday, accusing the Tuohy family of lying to him. Oher’s allegations center around two things: he says the Tuohy family lied by leading him to believe he was adopted when in reality he was under a conservatorship. The other allegation is that the family was enriched by “The Blind Side” movie, while he made no money off of it.
SJ joined Barstool Radio on Monday and responded to Oher’s allegations.
“If he says he learned [about the conservatorship agreement] in February, I find that hard to believe,” SJ said during the interview.
Oher claimed in his legal petition that it was not until February 2023 that he learned about the conservatorship, despite writing in his 2011 book that he signed a conservatorship with the Tuohy family.
SJ couldn’t poinpoint exactly when things went badly with Oher, who was taken in by the Tuohy family in 2004. Tuohy speculated that things started to change for Oher after the offensive lineman retired from the NFL. Oher last played in the 2016 NFL season.
SJ told Barstool Radio that he went through his text messages to try seeing when things changed. He revealed that Oher threatened the famiy in 2020, 2021.
“There was things back in 2020, 2021 that they were like ‘if you guys give me this much, then I won’t go public with things,'” SJ said.
SJ also felt that Oher began to have a money-related gripe with the Tuohy family around the time Sean Tuohy sold his business. The elder Tuohy owned over 100 fast food restaurants plus some of the land the restaurants sat on. According to a 2019 article in the Franchise Times, Tuohy sold the majority of his restaurant-related holdings for $213 million.
SJ said in the interview that he felt there was heightened awareness surrounding conservatorships due to the Brittney Spears saga, and that Oher is trying to capitalize on that to paint the Tuohys negatively.
While SJ disagreed with Oher’s allegation about being tricked into a conservatorship, he did support Oher’s pursuit of more money from the movie.
SJ said he’s made around $60,000-$70,000 from the movie over the last 4-5 years. He said that the movie made so much money that it became hard for the studio to hide the net proceeds.
SJ’s father claimed in an interview Monday that the family only received a cut of the $250,000 fee author Michael Lewis received for selling the rights to adapt his book into a movie. Oher’s lawsuit alleges that the family received a $250,000 fee plus 2.5% of the back end net profits. Tuohy Sr. said that any money the family received from the movie was split in five equal pieces, with Oher’s share given to the former NFL player.
In addition to SJ, Sean Tuohy Sr. responded to Oher’s allegations in an interview with a Memphis outlet on Monday. The attorney for the Tuohy family also issued a statement in which he accused Oher of attempting a $15 million shakedown of the Tuohys.
Here is the full interview with SJ:
