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Amber Heard Details 'Horrific' Abuse By 'Monster’ Johnny Depp In Response To Lawsuit

The actress claims her then-partner attacked her over a love scene with James Franco, went on an abusive ecstasy bender and head-butted her.

Actress Amber Heard has submitted a graphic new court filing that details horrifying allegations of abuse she says she endured during her relationship to actor Johnny Depp.

The Associated Press reports that on Thursday, the 32-year-old “Aquaman” actress asked a Virginia judge to dismiss a $50 million defamation lawsuit her 55-year-old ex-husband filed over an op-ed she wrote about domestic violence for The Washington Post in December 2018.

In the motion filed in the Circuit Court of Fairfax, Virginia, Heard goes into harrowing detail about more than a dozen alleged incidents before and during their rocky one-year marriage in which she claims the actor was high on drugs or alcohol, became “the Monster” and punched, slapped, kicked, spat on and choked her. There are also details about Depp allegedly head-butting Heard and pulling her hair so hard that chunks of her scalp came out.

Depp has denied the abuse, and the allegations have appeared in the couple’s divorce and other court documents. HuffPost has reached out to Depp’s publicist for comment.

Johnny Depp and Amber Heard attend at the Grammy Awards in 2016.
John Shearer via Getty Images
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard attend at the Grammy Awards in 2016.

In the court papers obtained by the New York Post’s Page Six, Heard claims that Depp’s substance abuse issues would trigger a personality they both referred to as “the Monster,” like on a morning in May 2014 in which the couple, who were dating at the time, traveled from Boston to Los Angeles on a private jet:

On the flight, Johnny ordered the flight attendants to give him an oxygen tank, and drank heavily. Johnny’s handlers told me that he was upset that I was filming a movie with a romantic scene with James Franco the day before. Soon, Johnny began to throw objects at me. Instead of reacting to his behavior, I simply moved seats. 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 states that at one point during the flight, she stood up and Depp kicked her in the back. She says she fell to the floor, Depp threw a boot at her and continued to insult her until he went to the bathroom and passed out inside.

Heard also elaborated on an incident she said occurred a month after their February 2015 marriage, in which Depp, who was supposed to be clean, went on a sleepless, three-day ecstasy bender in Australia:

Johnny told me that I had not explicitly forbidden him from taking ecstasy. The argument heated up, and Johnny pushed me, slapped me, and shoved me to the ground before I retreated to a locked bedroom.

Heard then goes into explicit detail about the abuse she said she endured during those three days, alleging she was hit, shoved and choked numerous more times. During their fights, Heard said Depp “shoved me into a ping pong table that collapsed underneath me,” threw bottles of alcohol at her and through the window, breaking panels, and at one point pulled off her nightgown. “I was naked and barefoot, covered in alcohol and glass,” Heard states.

She continued:

In one of the most horrific and scariest moments of this three-day ordeal, Johnny grabbed me by the neck and collarbone and slammed me against the countertop. I struggled to stand up as he strangled me, but my arms and feet kept slipping and sliding on to the spilled alcohol and were dragged against the broken glass on the countertop and floor, which repeatedly slashed my feet and arms. Scared for my life, I told Johnny, “You are hurting me and cutting me.” Johnny ignored me, continuing to hit me with the back of one closed hand, and slamming a hard plastic phone against a wall with his other until it was smashed into smithereens. While he was smashing the phone, Johnny severely injured his finger, cutting off the tip of it.

Heard states that the next morning she woke up to find that Depp had urinated all over the house and left messages for Heard in oil paint and his blood from his wounded finger. Heard said Depp was later hospitalized and she was left with “a busted lip, a swollen nose, and cuts all over my body. ... To this day, I still have scars on my arms and feet from this incident.”

Heard details other alleged incidents such as a time in March 2015 when she says she punched Depp in order to prevent him from attacking her sister, and a 2015 trip to Thailand in which Depp allegedly punched and choked her on a train.

“I remember being afraid that Johnny might not know when to stop, and that he might kill me,” she said of their fight in Thailand.

Heard also said that in December 2015 things got out of control when Depp “pulled large chunks of hair and scalp out of my head” and head-butted her, causing her nose to bleed.

Since their highly publicized 2016 divorce, in which Heard also claimed Depp had physically abused her, Heard has become an outspoken advocate for survivors of domestic abuse. Depp, however, has repeatedly denied her allegations of abuse.

In her 2018 op-ed in the Post, Heard did not name Depp, but Depp sued anyway. In his lawsuit, Depp says it’s clear Heard is talking about him and that he’s suffered financial losses due to her allegations, like being dropped from his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films. Depp’s lawyers call Heard’s claims “an elaborate hoax to generate positive publicity for Ms. Heard and advance her career” in his lawsuit, per Page Six.

Heard claims Depp often forgot “his delusional and violent conduct after he came out of his drunk or medicated states.”

Heard’s attorney, Eric George, chastised Depp in a statement Friday, per the AP.

“Johnny Depp physically and verbally abused Amber Heard,” George said. “Since their divorce, Mr. Depp has continued to publicly harass Ms. Heard, and attempted to gaslight the world by denying his abuse. It is long past time for Mr. Depp’s despicable conduct to end.”

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.