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Jay-Z Accuser Recants Rape Allegations
Confirmed
In Short: A woman who accused Jay-Z of raping her when she was 13 has formally recanted her allegations, saying they were false.
A woman who accused Jay-Z of raping her when she was 13 has formally recanted her allegations, saying they were false. The unnamed woman, who filed a lawsuit in 2024, stated in a declaration filed in Manhattan federal court on Thursday, September 24th, that Jay-Z never raped her.
In her declaration, the woman said she had not been promised or given money in exchange for making the declaration and that she had not received any monetary compensation. She also stated that she had not been offered any compensation to recant the allegations and had done so voluntarily and of her own free will.
The woman's new lawyer, James Blair Newman Jr., said in a statement that his client maintains she was the victim of sexual assault but was 'entirely mistaken' when she identified Jay-Z. She said she understands her false accusations have caused Jay-Z immense pain, suffering, and damage that can never be fully undone.
Jay-Z, who is married to singer Beyoncé, has repeatedly denied the claims and said they were made against him as part of an extortion attempt. He has also filed a malicious prosecution and defamation lawsuit against Tony Buzbee, his law firm, and the Jane Doe.
The lawsuit against Jay-Z was filed in December 2024 and was voluntarily dismissed with prejudice in February 2025 after the accuser withdrew her complaint. Jay-Z's case against Buzbee was dismissed earlier this month by a state appeals court, which said there was no evidence that Buzbee filed the case knowing the accusations were false.
The woman's recanting comes with a motion to drop her from Jay-Z's lawsuit. Jay-Z claims that he lost $20 million in contracts due to false allegations in Buzbee’s lawsuit.
Sean 'Diddy' Combs, who was also named in the lawsuit, denied the allegations. Combs is currently serving a 50-month jail sentence on transport for prostitution charges.
What's confirmed
- Setting out the events that led to her allegation, the woman said she saw an advert on Facebook in September or October 2024 looking for people who might have sexual assault claims against Combs.
- The unnamed woman filed a lawsuit in 2024 claiming she had been drugged and raped by Jay-Z, real name Shawn Carter, and Sean "Diddy" Combs at a party after the MTV Video Music Awards in 2000.
- When the accuser dropped her case in February 2025, the rapper, who is married to singer Beyoncé, said: "The trauma that my wife, my children, loved ones and I have endured can never be dismissed." The woman, from Alabama, has now been removed from Carter's lawsuit.
- “Shawn ‘Jay-Z’ Carter never raped me,” the Jane Doe wrote in a 12-page declaration filed in Manhattan federal court on Thursday, September 24th.
- The woman that accused Jay-Z of sexual assault is recanting her allegations.
What's still developing
- "The ad triggered memories of being raped when I was 13 years old," she said.
- She also said Buzbee and other lawyers acting on her behalf filed it "without conducting any independent investigation, background inquiry, or due diligence, and without obtaining any corroboration of the allegations".
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- The stars denied the allegation and she dropped the lawsuit last year.
- Buzbee, who filed dozens of abuse cases against Sean “ Diddy ” Combs during the mogul’s fall from grace, added Jay-Z to one of them in December 2024.
- The case against Jay-Z was quickly dropped in February 2025, less than three months after it named the superstar.
- In it, she does not outright say that Buzbee or her other former attorneys (David Fortney and Antigone Curis) knew her claims against Jay-Z were false before they filed them.
- The suit was originally filed against Combs that October and amended to add JAY-Z as a co-defendant.
- Indeed, in an interview with NBC News conducted shortly after the suit against JAY-Z was filed, the woman admitted she made “some mistakes” in her recollections of the events.
- “Shawn ‘Jay-Z’ Carter never raped me. I have never met or spoken to Mr. Carter,” the plaintiff wrote, per Rolling Stone.
- Carter did not rape her, sexually assault her, engage in any inappropriate conduct towards her, and she has never met him.
- Jay-Z (born Shawn Carter) strongly denied the allegations, and the case was dropped three months later.