Jay-Z says he "would die" if he took a settlement in sexual assault lawsuit

Calling his 2025 “really hard,” Jay says, “That whole [lawsuit thing], that shit took a lot out of me. I was angry. I haven’t been that angry in a long time, uncontrollable anger. You don’t put that on someone—that’s a thing that you better be super sure. It used to be like that. You had to be super sure before you put those kind of things on a person. Especially a person like me.” He continues, “I took that really hard. I knew that we were going to walk through that because, first of all, it’s not true. And the truth, at the end of the day, still reigns supreme,” adding, “we played enough defense. 2026 is all offense.” 

The lawsuit comes up again later in the interview when GQ editor Frazier Tharpe asks Jay about the anger he described previously. “I can’t take a settlement—it ain’t in my DNA. First of all, first I had to tell my wife. Let’s back up. I know the weight that this is going to bring on our family. I can’t do it. I would die,” he says. “If I settled—make that thing go away. And for me, it would’ve been cheaper? Yes. Cheaper, quicker, move on with your life. I knew what was coming. I wasn’t naive. I called—again, after my family—my partners. They were like, ‘What do you need to help? Don’t even worry.’ In a phone call. Not even a: ‘I got to go to the board with this.’ It was like a testament because people know me. Like: ‘I know who you are and that’s impossible. Not only are we standing by you, but what do you need?'” Jay also says he’s “still dealing” with his anger over the suit, “Because that’s a horrible thing to put on someone. It was like released the night of my daughter’s [movie] premiere.”  

Jay, born Shawn Carter, was accused of raping a 13-year-old girl with Sean “Diddy” Combs in 2000 at an MTV Video Music Awards afterparty in 2000. After attempts by Carter’s legal team to get the case dismissed, the Jane Doe plaintiff dropped the case about two months after it went public in 2024, and the case was dismissed with prejudice, meaning it could not be retried in that form. Carter celebrated the dismissal as “a victory.”