MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A prominent Memphis couple with a longstanding relationship to former NFL player Michael Oher want to end a conservatorship that he’s challenging in court, their lawyers said.

Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy intend to enter into a consent order to end the conservatorship, lawyer Randall Fishman told reporters on Wednesday.

Oher filed a petition Monday in a Tennessee probate court accusing the Tuohys of lying to him by having him sign papers making them his conservators rather than his adoptive parents nearly two decades ago.

Oher, now 37, wants a full accounting of assets considering his life story produced millions of dollars, though he says he received nothing from the Oscar-nominated movie “The Blind Side.” He accuses the Tuohys of falsely representing themselves as his adoptive parents, saying that he discovered in February 2023 that the conservatorship was not the arrangement he thought it was — and that it provided him no familial relationship to the Tuohys.

But the Tuohys' attorneys said Oher knew very well that he had not been adopted. Fishman said Oher mentioned the Tuohys being conservators for him three times in “I Beat The Odds: From Homeless, To The Blind Side," Oher’s first book in 2011.

The couple’s attorneys also said that the Tuohys and Oher have been estranged for about a decade. Steve Farese said Oher has become “more and more vocal and more and more threatening” over the past decade or so, and this is “devastating for the family.”

The Tuohys have called the allegations a ridiculous shakedown attempt, and “a court of law is no place to play,” Fishman said. In a statement released by their lawyers Tuesday , the Tuohys said Oher had threatened before the court filing to plant a negative news story about them unless they paid him $15 million.

Oher’s lawyers did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

The conservatorship paperwork was filed months after Oher turned 18 in May 2004. Oher accuses the Tuohys of never taking legal action to assume custody from the Tennessee Department of Human Services before he turned 18, though he was told to call them “Mom” and “Dad.”

Oher alleges the Tuohys had him sign paperwork almost immediately after he moved in as part of the adoption process. Oher says he was “falsely advised” that it would be called a conservatorship because he was already 18, but that adoption was the intent.

The couple didn’t simply adopt Oher, Fishman said, because the conservatorship was the fastest way to satisfy the NCAA’s concerns that the Tuohys weren’t simply steering a talented athlete to Mississippi, their alma mater where Oher later attended.

Oher, who has never been a fan of the movie about his life , asks that the Tuohys be sanctioned and required by the probate court to pay damages. He asks to be paid what he is due, along with interest.

Agents negotiated a small advance for the Tuohys from the production company for “The Blind Side,” based on a book written by Sean Tuohy’s friend Michael Lewis, the couple said. That included “a tiny percentage of net profits” divided equally among a group that included Oher, they said in their statement.

The attorneys said they estimated each of the Tuohys and Oher received $100,000 apiece, and the couple paid taxes on Oher's portion for him. “Michael got every dime, every dime he had coming,” Fishman said.

“They don’t need his money,” Farese said. “They’ve never needed his money. Mr. Tuohy sold his company for $220 million.”

Martin Singer, an attorney for the Tuohys, said that profit participation checks and studio accounting statements support their assertions. The movie won Sandra Bullock an Oscar for her portrayal of Leigh Anne Tuohy.

When Oher refused to cash the checks, the statement said, the Tuohys deposited Oher’s share into a trust account.

The Tuohys said that they set up the conservatorship to help Oher with health insurance, a driver’s license and being admitted to college. In Tennessee, a conservatorship removes power from a person to make decisions for themselves, and it is often used in the case of a medical condition or disability.

But Oher's conservatorship was approved “despite the fact that he was over 18 years old and had no diagnosed physical or psychological disabilities," his petition said.

Oher was the 23rd overall pick in the 2009 draft out of Mississippi, and he spent his first five seasons with the Baltimore Ravens where he won a Super Bowl. He played 110 games over eight NFL seasons, including 2014 when he started 11 games for the Tennessee Titans. Oher finished his career with two years in Carolina.

He last played in 2016 and was released in 2017 by Carolina . He is on a book tour for “When Your Back’s Against the Wall: Fame, Football, and Lessons Learned Through a Lifetime of Adversity.”

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PHILADELPHIA — Big Bird fans are getting a new place to shop for Sesame Street merchandise.

Sesame Place, the Bucks County theme park designed around the children’s television show, is opening the country’s largest Sesame Street store this fall outside the entrance.

The shop will become the major retail location for the theme park, which already offers “the widest variety of Sesame Street-themed plush for sale in the world,” according to a press release.

Patrons are already able to buy merchandise inside Sesame Place at several locations, including Sesame Souvenirs, Mr. Hooper’s Gift Shop, and Oscar’s Garage.

Beyond the theme park, merchandise from the show is for sale online.

“When navigating this ‘new normal’ we find ourselves in post-pandemic, we are seeing trends shift — people want experiences, and that’s what the Sesame Place Store is,” said a spokesperson for Sesame Place Philadelphia via email.

The 6,800-square-foot store will be located on the entrance plaza at Sesame Place, so shoppers can access it without paying for a day pass. A regular full-price ticket to enter Sesame Place costs $99.99.

The park, which opened in 1980, employs up to 1,500 staff members per season. Attractions include Elmo’s Surf ‘n’ Slide, Big Bird’s Tour Bus, and Oscar’s Wacky Taxi roller coaster. Sesame Street characters roam through the park to meet patrons.

A second Sesame Place location opened in San Diego last year. The parks are part of the SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment portfolio, which also includes SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, and Discovery Cove.

Sesame Place Philadelphia came under fire last year, when a costumed character allegedly refused to high-five two Black girls at the park during a parade. The park initially alleged that the employee inside the costume was waiving off someone else who was asking them to carry their child, which is not permitted.

In a similar incident, another family alleged that their Black child was ignored during a meet and greet with characters from the show and filed a lawsuit against the theme park.

In light of the incidents, Sesame Place issued apologies, adopted diversity and inclusion training for staff members, and said it would undergo a “racial equity assessment.”

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NEW YORK — How do you top a five-time Grammy Award-winning album that had critics applauding its rich blend of R&B, hip-hop, swing, jazz and pop? If you're Jon Batiste, you go even higher and wider.

The singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist returns this month two years after his triumphant album “We Are” with the complex “World Music Radio,” a collection he calls an “expansive, genre-less, popular music concept record."

“World Music Radio” is conceived like a timeless radio broadcast from a sort of interstellar DJ, gradually taking the listener from a hip-hop, pop and dance party to soul, Latin, folk and gospel. It's like moving from a rave to church.

“I wanted to have that effect where you’re traveling from Saturday night to Sunday morning and you’re slowly moving towards this state of bliss, in this state of feeling this ultimate humanism and togetherness with everyone and feeling connected to the universe,” Batiste says.

“World Music Radio,” out Friday, isn't just a sonic trip, it's also a mesmerizing way to dial into Batiste's eclectic and wide musicality, with songs switching sounds midway and lyrics layered with symbolisms and multiple languages seeping out. Few albums can boast a Duke Ellington vocal clip, the Muslim call to prayer and a Kenny G sax solo.

“For me, playing is always a form of dreaming. And I’m constantly creating based on thoughts or conversations that I’ve had, words that have resonated with me or people who have helped me to be who I am today,” he says.

The album begins with a salutation — “Hello everybody, I’m Billy Bob Bo Bob” — as Batiste sets the listener up for a spin of Earth's sounds, from the Afropop of “Be Who You Are,” Johnny Cash-like “Master Power” to the Michael Jackson-esque “Call Now (504-305-8269).”

Water, so vital to the planet and so dangerous to his hometown of New Orleans, is a theme — from the super pop of “Drink Water” featuring Jon Bellion and Fireboy DML — to the exuberant “Raindance” to the restrained, distorted ballad “White Space,” where he sings “Saved in the water/I’m saved.”

It was all a struggle at first. The singer-songwriter had amassed a massive 3 1/2 hours of new music but wasn't able to figure out a through-line. Its working title was “World Music.”

“It wasn’t about making a world music album, but using that as a prompt because it’s really a horrendous term, if you think about it for many reasons,” he says. “I went to bed kind of discouraged, not really having the sense of what it was.”

That's when an odd muse visited. Batiste had read about an unusual radio signal that some attribute to a being called B4, hence Billy Bob Bo Bob. What “World Music” was missing, he realized, was a DJ. He worked feverishly through the night.

“I can’t explain to you how it just struck me like lightning. It was just so quickly a part of the fiber of my being in a way that I just saw it,” Batiste says. "It took so long for it to reveal itself. And I was almost at the point where ‘Maybe we need to scrap this.’”

The album's collaborators — which include Lil Wayne, K-pop girl group NewJeans and Lana Del Rey — didn't always know about the alien DJ stuff or the high concept behind the album.

“I try to make it where someone can step in and do their thing without having to understand the greater concept,” he says. “I didn’t tell them. None of the collaborators knew what I was building, but I knew that if I casted them properly, they would shine.”

“World Music Radio” comes after Batiste untethered himself from late-night television — he was the bandleader for "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert for seven years.

Louis Cato, another multi-instrumentalist who he recruited to join Colbert's band and who succeeded him as bandleader, calls Batiste a “transcendental musician” who gave him a front-row seat to learning on the job.

“I feel really lucky and grateful for that,” Cato says. “This was nowhere in in the cards for me, you know. I think there’s something really powerful about learning through a relationship.”

In addition to his Grammy success last year, Batiste also earned a best original score Oscar alongside Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for his work on Pixar’s “Soul” in 2020.

The scion of New Orleans musical royalty, Batiste started life as a video gamer/classical music student/jazz pupil and he refuses to recognize any boundaries in music. The first four albums he ever bought attest to that — Michael Jackson's “Dangerous,” Bjork’s “Vespertine,” Common's “Like Water for Chocolate” and “Led Zeppelin IV.”

The roots for “Word Music Radio” were planted about a decade ago when Batiste released his album “Social Music,” what he called “a statement of intention, a manifesto. And ‘World Music’ is really a realization of that." He adds: “Now I’m just at a point in life where I can create this kind of thing more effectively.”

Batiste thinks the album may be a roadmap for the future as Latin, K-pop and African sounds influence pop .

“We have to liberate ourselves as artists, and I think the public is ready for that. Global influence has just seeped into popular culture more and more every day. Everybody’s ready for the chains to be broken and for things to be expanded. The Grammys have expanded categories,” he says. "More and more communities want to be recognized. It’s just going to continue.”