The Blind Side author weighs in on this whole ugly Blind Side situation

The increasingly fractious situation surrounding NFL star Michael Oher, married couple Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, and the 2009 Oscar winner The Blind Side (based on their lives) got precisely what it apparently needed, today: Another voice chiming in, to offer up some thoughts. Specifically, that would be the voice of Michael Lewis, whose 2006 book The Blind Side publicized the relationship between Oher and the Tuohys, who became Oher’s legal guardians when he was still in high school. (Oher has made it clear in recent weeks that the couple never actually adopted him, as is typically depicted, but instead had themselves named his legal conservators; the conservatorship is reportedly set to end at Oher’s request in the near future.)

Lewis, who also wrote Moneyball and The Big Short, has weighed in on the matter from a financial point of view, pushing back on Oher’s assertion that the Tuohy family pocketed large amounts of money from the movie rights to his life story that he never got to see. As Lewis tells it, even though The Blind Side made $300 million at the box office, very little of that made it to the family. In a conversation with The Washington Post, he asserted that, “The money is not in the Tuohys’ pockets,” and that “Everybody should be mad at the Hollywood studio system. Michael Oher should join the writers strike.”

Oher alleged, in a legal filing earlier this week, that the Tuohys received $225,000 apiece for the film, plus profits on the movie, which were kept from him due to the conservatorship. Lewis, in turn, contends that the family got $70,000 for an early option on the film, and then received about $350,000 from the profits of the movie. He also alleges that, though the family shared the profits equally, Oher began declining his royalty checks. Lewis says he believes the family began putting the money into a trust for Oher’s son; meanwhile, they’ve accused Oher of running a “shakedown” on them.

Lewis also decided to weigh in on the emotional aspect of things, since this situation wasn’t carrying enough incredibly complicated emotional baggage. “What I feel really sad about is I watched the whole thing up close,” he told the Post. “They showered him with resources and love. That he’s suspicious of them is breathtaking. The state of mind one has to be in to do that — I feel sad for him.”