A years-long legal controversy centered on explosive sexual assault allegations against iconic hip-hop artist Jay-Z has taken a sharp turn, with the woman who brought the claims formally admitting her entire accusation against the rapper was fabricated from start to finish.
The accuser, identified in court filings only by the pseudonym Jane Doe, first filed a high-profile civil lawsuit in 2024 alleging that Jay-Z (legal name Shawn Carter) and fellow music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs drugged and raped her when she was 13 years old at a post-MTV Video Music Awards party in 2000. Both men immediately and vehemently denied the claims, and Doe voluntarily withdrew her lawsuit against Carter in early 2025. Following the withdrawal, Carter launched his own legal action against Doe and her legal team, led by prominent Texas-based attorney Tony Buzbee, to address the harm the false claims had caused.
In a sworn declaration filed Thursday as part of Carter’s lawsuit, Doe completely walked back every allegation she made against the 14-time Grammy-winning rapper. She wrote, “Shawn ‘Jay-Z’ Carter never raped me. I have never met or spoken to Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter never engaged in any inappropriate conduct toward me whatsoever.” She went on to confirm that her broader claims that Carter and Combs assaulted her while a third unnamed celebrity watched were also entirely untrue, adding, “There is no truth to any of my claims against Mr Carter.”
Doe acknowledged the irreversible damage her false accusations inflicted, writing, “I understand my false accusations have caused Mr. Carter immense pain, suffering, and damage that can never be fully undone.” The Alabama-based woman also pushed back on prior claims from Buzbee that Carter’s legal team had intimidated her into recanting, stating clearly, “I never received any threat from Mr. Carter or anyone acting on his behalf.” She further confirmed that she has not accepted any payment from Carter or any representative of his to issue this retraction.
Detailing how the false claims came to be filed, Doe explained that she saw a Facebook advertisement in late 2024 seeking individuals with sexual assault allegations against Combs. The ad, she said, triggered her existing memories of a childhood assault that she misattributed to Carter and Combs before the lawsuit was drafted. She also alleged that Buzbee and his legal team filed the 2024 lawsuit against her instructions, claiming the legal team never shared a draft of the complaint with her, did not get her formal approval before filing, and failed to conduct any independent investigation, background checks, due diligence, or seek corroborating evidence for the explosive claims. She emphasized that the entire allegation of assault by Carter is categorically false.
As part of the updated legal proceedings, Doe has now been dismissed from Carter’s ongoing lawsuit. The rapper continues to pursue legal action against Buzbee and the other former attorneys on the case. In response to the breaking news, which was first reported by *Rolling Stone*, Buzbee said he had not yet reviewed Doe’s new declaration. He noted that Doe had told the same version of the false story to at least four other attorneys before she connected with him, casting the sudden recantation as unanticipated new information. When Carter filed his lawsuit against Doe and Buzbee’s team in February 2025, Buzbee had alleged that Carter’s investigators had repeatedly harassed and threatened Doe to force her to withdraw her claims, an assertion Doe directly contradicts in her new declaration.
Combs, who has also denied Doe’s allegations against him, is currently incarcerated after being convicted on prostitution-related charges involving two of his ex-girlfriends in a July 2025 criminal trial. He is serving a four-year prison sentence. Buzbee, who represents dozens of other plaintiffs with civil claims against Combs, has not issued any further public comment on the recantation as of Friday, and the BBC has confirmed that requests for additional comment from Buzbee remain unanswered.
For his part, Carter has long maintained that the allegations against him were nothing more than a blackmail scheme, describing them in 2025 as “frivolous, fictitious and appalling allegations.” When Doe first dropped her initial lawsuit last year, the rapper, who is married to global pop superstar Beyoncé, noted that the damage done to his family and loved ones could not be erased, saying, “The trauma that my wife, my children, loved ones and I have endured can never be dismissed.”