Jay-Z accuser says 2000 rape claim was false, court filing says
The woman who accused Jay-Z of raping her as a 13-year-old girl in 2000 has said in a sworn statement dated 25 September that the claim was false. She said she had never met or spoken to the rapper. She said he never engaged in any inappropriate conduct toward her whatsoever, according to Billboard.
The statement said she had not received or been promised money to reverse her account. It was filed alongside a motion in which Jay-Z voluntarily dropped her from his own ongoing lawsuit. In the declaration, she also said her former lawyers had done little due diligence on her case and referred to her mental health issues.
Lawyer Tony Buzbee added Jay-Z to a lawsuit against Sean Combs in December 2024. That complaint alleged the two men drugged and assaulted a teenage girl after the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards. The case was dropped in February 2025.
Jay-Z is now pursuing a separate federal lawsuit. It accuses the woman, identified in court as Jane Doe, along with Buzbee and other lawyers, of malicious prosecution, a claim that a case was brought without proper legal basis, and civil conspiracy, an allegation that defendants worked together unlawfully to bring that case. A state appeals court has separately dismissed Jay-Z's Los Angeles lawsuit against Buzbee for extortion and defamation. That court said there was no evidence Buzbee filed the case knowing the accusations were false.
Later on 25 September, attorneys for Buzbee asked the judge in the federal case to strike the recantation from the record. They characterised it as irrelevant and inflammatory and "bought-and-paid-for", without offering evidence for that claim. They also wrote that Jay-Z and his lawyers had spent two years calling Jane Doe inherently unreliable.
The filings are the latest turn in a long procedural fight. Jay-Z has claimed in court papers that Buzbee sent him an "extortionate demand letter" in November 2024, as reported by Rolling Stone. In January 2025, he sought sanctions against the accuser's lawyer, according to Reuters. Buzbee said in an email to the agency at the time that the filing "reeks of desperation" and accused Jay-Z's team of trying to bully counsel.
