Amber Heard’s legal team have attacked British GQ magazine for its profile of Johnny Depp, describing it as “outrageous” for including quotes in which Depp denied he was responsible for alleged physical abuse.

A statement quoted by the Hollywood Reporter says: “If GQ had done even a basic investigation into Mr Depp’s claims, it would have quickly realised that his statements are entirely untrue. Mr Depp has blatantly disregarded the parties’ confidentiality agreement.”

The lengthy interview contains a number of comments from Depp about the fallout from his and Heard’s acrimonious separation in 2016, during which Heard alleged that Depp was “verbally and physically abusive” and for which she obtained a temporary restraining order against him. Depp’s lawyers claimed that Heard was “attempting to secure a premature financial resolution by alleging abuse”. (The pair reached a settlement in August 2016, and their divorce was finalised in 2017, with the restraining order lifted.)

In the GQ interview, Depp denied any physical abuse as he has done from the outset. “To harm someone you love? As a kind of bully? No, it didn’t, it couldn’t even sound like me … How could someone, anyone, come out with something like that against someone, when there’s no truth to it whatsoever? I’m sure it wasn’t easy for my 14-year-old boy to go to school, you know what I mean?”

Depp also said that Heard’s alleged injuries were questionable: “Why didn’t [Heard] speak to the police? … I mean, they spoke to the police, but the police saw nothing and they offered her an emergency medical technician. She said no … and I don’t know if it was the next day or a couple of days later, but then there was a bruise. There was a red mark and then there was a brown bruise.”

He added: “She was at a party the next day. Her eye wasn’t closed. She had her hair over her eye, but you could see the eye wasn’t shut. Twenty-five feet away from her, how the fuck am I going to hit her? Which, by the way, is the last thing I would’ve done. I might look stupid, but I ain’t fucking stupid.”

Slim tattoo … Depp at a California film festival in 2016. Photograph: Chelsea Lauren/Variety/Rex/Shutterstock

It also emerged that Depp had altered a tattoo that originally said “Slim” (his nickname for Heard) to “Scum” and then “Scam”.

Heard’s legal statement said: “Mr Depp is shamefully continuing his psychological abuse of Ms Heard, who has attempted to put a very painful part of her life firmly in her past. One need only look at the physical evidence to draw the proper conclusion.”

In response, Depp’s lawyer said: “Mr Depp is simply defending himself against Ms Heard’s lingering false abuse accusations. Johnny Depp is the abuse victim. In UK court proceedings next month, we will be submitting clear evidence of the violence committed serially against him by Ms Heard and the serious injuries that he suffered. We will also submit overwhelming evidence that Ms Heard faked the abuse allegations against Mr Depp.

“The only ‘shameful psychological abuse’ stems from Ms Heard’s continuing cynical manipulation of the important #MeToo movement and its real victims, that she has used to pursue her own ends.”