Amber Heard Details Alleged Abuse by 'Monster' Johnny Depp as He Calls Her Claims a 'Hoax'

Amber Heard is detailing the alleged abuse she experienced while married to ex Johnny Depp in a new court filing.

In response to Depp’s $50 million defamation lawsuit against her, the actress, 32, claims the actor became “the Monster” when he was allegedly under the influence of drugs and alcohol, according to court documents obtained by PEOPLE.

Depp’s attorney issued a statement to PEOPLE denying Heard’s new claims in the court filing.

“A hoax confronted with the reality of evidence requires new lies to sustain itself,” Depp’s attorney said in the statement. “Yesterday’s filing, made by a woman with a prior arrest and incarceration for domestic abuse, presented Amber Heard’s new lies.”

(Heard was arrested in 2009 for an alleged domestic violence incident with then-girlfriend Tasya van Ree, though all charges against Heard were dropped. Van Ree said said in 2016 the situation was “misinterpreted” and denied any domestic abuse.)

Heard’s attorney did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

Heard and Depp, 55, were married in 2015. In May 2016, she filed for a domestic violence restraining order against him, accusing him of abusing her. Depp denied the claims, and the former couple settled their divorce out of court in August 2016 for $7 million, which she donated to charity. Both actors signed NDAs barring them from discussing their relationship publicly.

Depp sued her for defamation after she wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post in December 2018 in which she described being an alleged victim of domestic violence. While she never mentioned Depp by name, the actor’s lawsuit called her allegations against him a “hoax.”

In her court filing, the Aquaman actress claims Depp repeatedly hit her, ripped out her hair and choked her.

Heard claims Depp “would become a totally different person, often delusional and violent. We called that version of Johnny, ‘the Monster,’” according to the court documents.

She alleges while on a flight from Boston to Los Angeles in May 2014, Depp “began to throw objects at me” due to his alleged disappointment that she had filmed a romantic scene with James Franco.

“Instead of reacting to his behavior, I simply moved seats,” she said. “That didn’t stop him. He provocatively pushed a chair at me as I walked by, yelled at me, and taunted me by yelling out the name ‘James Franco.’”

Heard alleges that in December 2015 Depp “picked another fight with me” while in their Los Angeles apartment.

She claims the actor “threw another decanter at me, knocked items around the room, and punched a wall,” and alleges he “slapped me hard, grabbed me by my hair and dragged me from a stairwell to the office to the living to the kitchen to the bedroom and then to the guest room.”

Heard says she told Depp she wanted “to leave him, and that I would call the police if he ever touched me again” but that the actor allegedly responded by “pushing me” and “head-butted me in my face.”

Depp has previously denied all of Heard’s previous allegations of domestic violence, saying in his defamation lawsuit that he “never abused Ms. Heard. Her allegations against him were false when they were made in 2016. They were part of an elaborate hoax to generate positive publicity for Ms. Heard and advance her career.”

In response, Heard’s rep said in a statement: “This frivolous action is just the latest of Johnny Depp’s repeated efforts to silence Amber Heard. She will not be silenced. Mr. Depp’s actions prove he is unable to accept the truth of his ongoing abusive behavior. But while he appears hell-bent on achieving self-destruction, we will prevail in defeating this groundless lawsuit and ending the continued vile harassment of my client by Mr. Depp and his legal team.”

Depp is suing for compensatory damages following the op-ed, as well as punitive damages for the “willfulness and maliciousness that Ms. Heard demonstrated when she knowingly published the op-ed with the false implication that Mr. Depp violently abused her.”

Page Six first reported the news.