Jay-Z accuser formally recants sexual assault allegation

A woman who accused Jay-Z and Sean “Diddy” Combs of raping her when she was 13 has formally withdrawn her allegation against Jay-Z, saying in a court declaration that she never met him and that her claims were false.

“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,” the woman wrote in the 12-page declaration, reviewed by CBS News. Carter is Jay-Z’s legal name.

The woman, identified in court documents as Jane Doe, also wrote that her claim that Carter and Combs raped her while a third person watched was false. “I understand my false accusations have caused Mr Carter immense pain, suffering, and damage that can never be fully undone,” she said.

Her former lawsuit alleged that she was drugged and raped at a party after the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards. She filed suit in October 2024, and Carter was added as a defendant in December, CBS News reported. Both men denied the allegations. The woman dropped her lawsuit in February 2025.

In the new declaration, she said she saw a Facebook advertisement in September or October 2024 seeking people who might have sexual assault claims against Combs. “The ad triggered memories of being raped when I was 13 years old,” she wrote. She said she contacted the company behind the ad and was connected with the Buzbee Law Firm.

The woman said her lawyers filed the initial lawsuit without showing her a draft or obtaining her authorization. She also accused them of failing to investigate or seek corroboration. According to CBS News, she said she began doubting her allegations against Carter in January 2025, including whether she had attended a party with celebrities, and that her lawyers dismissed the case after she told them.

Her new lawyer, James Blair Newman Jr., said she “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.”

Carter, who had called the allegations a “blackmail attempt,” sued the woman, attorney Tony Buzbee and his firm after her case was dropped. He accused them of trying to pressure him into a secret financial settlement. Carter alleges that Buzbee sent him an “extortionate demand letter” in October 2024 and added him to the lawsuit after he refused to pay, CBS News reported. The malicious prosecution case against Buzbee and his firm remains active in New York. Carter filed a notice Thursday voluntarily dismissing the woman as a defendant.

The woman said she had not received money from Carter or anyone acting for him and had not been paid to make the declaration, the BBC reported. She also said she had never been threatened by Carter or his representatives.

Buzbee told Rolling Stone he had not seen the declaration. He said at least four lawyers had heard the same account from the woman before she met him. “If for some reason now she is claiming she lied to us and the court, that’s new information,” he said. Buzbee had previously alleged that Carter’s investigators pressured her to recant. He continues to represent other people who have sued Combs.

Combs is serving a four-year prison sentence after his July 2025 conviction on prostitution-related charges involving two former girlfriends.