Michael Oher KNEW The Tuohys Were His Conservators More Than A Decade Ago?! Here's The Proof...

Now that the world is recovering from the initial shock of the lawsuit Michael Oher filed this week against Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, old words are being dug up that might shed light on the situation.

Oher was the subject of the 2009 movie The Blind Side. As seen in the film, after being taken in and cared for by the Touhy family during his difficult early high school days, he went on to play college football at Ole Miss, and then had a starring NFL gig for years with the Baltimore Ravens and Carolina Panthers. A true Cinderella story. Well, maybe except for the “true” part?

As we’ve been reporting, things are not nearly so sweet between Oher and the Tuohys anymore. He alleges in his newly-filed lawsuit that the family tricked him into signing away his rights as part of a conservatorship created after his 18th birthday. The football star claims the Memphis-based fam enriched themselves through his underdog tale and football success.

And yet there may be more to this story… More than a decade ago, Oher penned I Beat The Odds: From Homelessness, to the Blind Side, and Beyond. That memoir was published in 2011 — two years after the movie starring Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw came out — and it dealt with the real-life tale of the ex-Ravens star.

At one point in the book, Oher very openly states that he knew he was “considered an adult” by the laws of the state of Tennessee when he signed paperwork to connect to the Tuohys, and they were to become his “legal conservators” in the process:

“It kind of felt like a formality, as I’d been a part of the family for more than a year at that point. 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.'”

In that 2011 book, Oher went on:

“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.”

Wow!

That’s big, because in this new lawsuit, Oher claims he only just found out about the conservatorship a couple months ago. That would appear to not be the case considering he very openly wrote about it 12 years ago. So there’s a schism between what the suit is alleging about Oher’s (lack of) conservatorship knowledge, and what was known back then.

Of course, it’s possible he didn’t understand what having conservators meant at the time. Heck, all of America seems to only have learned amid Britney Spears‘ legal battle of the past couple years. But does that matter legally? Hmmm…

That’s not all as far as sad new Tuohy-Oher news to report, either. On Wednesday, Sean and Leigh Anne’s attorneys Randall Fishman and Steven Farese held a press conference about the lawsuit. When asked by reporters whether Oher had been in any kind of contact with the Tuohy fam, Farese succinctly said “no.” Then, he continued:

“He’s been estranged probably since for the last 10 years, and becoming more and more vocal and more and more threatening.”

Fishman also went on to reiterate the Tuohy fam’s claim that they did not make big bucks off The Blind Side. He asserted in that Wednesday press conference that each family member “received $100,000” via royalties from the film. The film grossed more than $330 million worldwide, so we get Fishman is trying to put things into context on behalf of his clients. But even in Hollywood, $100K IS a lot of money, especially for this kind of thing. And each family member got that? Did Oher??

Fishman also called any claims the Tuohys controlled Oher’s contracts as “patently false,” adding:

“[Oher] negotiated his own contract with the NFL. He’s hired and fired his agents. The Tuohys have never had to sign off on any of that. He’s done that all himself. … They wanted no part of his money. They would have done anything to help him had he needed them to, but he negotiated his own deals and made his own money. And I think he made $34-$35 million playing right tackle.”

Contract specifics aside, it’s sad to hear about the long estrangement for both the Tuohy family and Oher. That such a feel-good, inspirational tale could turn so contentious truly breaks our hearts.

Thoughts, Perezcious readers?

[Image via Michael Oher/Instagram/SJ Tuohy/Instagram]