The rape allegations against Jay-Z have been dropped after a woman who accused him of sexual assault in December 2024 recants her story. In 2024, a woman known only as Jane Doe filed suit against Jay-Z, claiming he and Sean “Diddy” Combs raped her as a 13-year-old after the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards. Jay-Z (born Shawn Carter) strongly denied the allegations, and the case was dropped three months later. Per Billboard, Doe’s disavowal was included in a new lawsuit filed yesterday by Jay-Z against the accuser and her former attorney, Tony Buzbee, stating, “Mr. Carter never engaged in any inappropriate conduct toward me whatsoever.” She says he “never raped me” and she “never met or spoke to Mr. Carter.”
Doe got involved with Buzbee after responding to a Facebook ad searching for Diddy victims. She gave a brief interview with the AVA law firm, telling them she went to a different award show in 2000, not the VMAs. She says she doesn’t recall another call before the filing, and “did not know that the October Complaint had even been filed until weeks later.” Ever since, Jay-Z has attempted to sue Buzbee for targeting him. In November 2024, He filed a suit against Buzbee in Los Angeles, which was dropped due to insufficient evidence against Buzbee for filing suit on accusations he knew to be false.
Jane Doe, more or less, blames her lawyers for letting the suit go through. In the filing, Doe claims she disclosed mental health issues to Buzbee, who she believes never conducted “any independent investigation, background inquiry, or due diligence, and without obtaining any corroboration of the allegations.” She says Buzbee paid her $1,000 to participate in an NBC interview in which he “coached me on how to act and what to say.” She began to “doubt my claims” in January 2025 and expressed those concerns to her lawyers, who told her they would drop the case. According to the new filing, Doe has not received any monetary compensation, nor has she been offered any, to recant the allegations, and has done so “voluntarily and of my own free will.” However, the recanting comes with a motion to drop her from Jay-Z’s lawsuit.
“Our client maintains that she was a victim of sexual assault, but she was entirely mistaken in her allegations identifying Mr. Carter, and those allegations were false,” Doe’s current attorney, J. Blair Newman said in a statement to Billboard. “She sincerely and unconditionally apologizes to Mr. Carter and his family.”
Keep scrolling for more great stories.