Legal representatives for the Tuohy family now claim that Oher tried to blackmail them for $15 million prior to the lawsuit by threatening to go public with the story.

“Over the years, the Tuohys have given Mr. Oher an equal cut of every penny received from “The Blind Side,’” attorney Marty Singer told TMZ Sports.

“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,” he added.

Singer further charged that Oher had been dropped by other lawyers until he “found a willing enabler and filed this ludicrous lawsuit as a cynical attempt to drum up attention in the middle of his latest book tour.”

[This is getting ugly, fast. — Ed]