Jay-Z files defamation suit against accuser in dropped sex assault case

(CN) — Recording artist Jay-Z filed a defamation lawsuit against an individual and a law firm that had accused him of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old after the MTV Video Music Awards in 2000.

The accuser detailed her claims against Jay-Z in a December 2024 complaint, saying Jay-Z and embattled rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs took turns raping her after the awards show. The plaintiffs voluntarily obtained dismissal of the complaint in February, with Jay-Z calling the claims “frivolous, fictitious and appalling.”

In Monday’s lawsuit, the artist, whose birth name is Shawn Corey Carter, claims the anonymous accuser has since admitted the story was false. He says the attorneys who represented her fabricated the claims against him and amplified them in national TV interviews to pursue a financial windfall.

Jay-Z argues the woman’s claims were demonstrably false, because he was documented as being elsewhere during the time she said the assault took place. But the woman identified only as Jane Doe’s other claims were also rife with inconsistencies and improbabilities, he says.

For example, when she could not get a ticket to attend the VMAs, the woman says she watched the ceremony outside Madison Square Garden on a jumbotron. But citing the event’s production team, Jay-Z says there was no giant screen.

Jay-Z argues that while other details about the scene of the supposed assault and logistics were also proven false, the plaintiff and her attorneys “were happy to perpetuate the lies and hold out hope for an unwarranted payment.”

The artist named attorneys Anthony Buzbee and David Fortney as defendants, as well as Buzbee’s law firm. He notes that Buzbee was not admitted to practice law in the New York court where the original complaint was filed and Buzbee that is the defendant in a related defamation case in California. Although the original plaintiff has recanted her story and dropped her lawsuit, Buzbee and Fortney continue a campaign to extort the artist, Jay-Z claims.

The defendants attempted to engage in conspiracy to “assassinate the impeccable and lifetime-earned character” of Jay-Z, “who did nothing to deserve or elicit the wanton, depraved attack,” he says in the complaint.

Jay-Z is seeking punitive and compensatory damages, claiming the accusations resulted in “substantial losses” of at least $20 million to his business. The lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of Alabama, where the woman claims residency.

Combs was also criminally charged in September 2024 by federal prosecutors in New York with racketeering, sex trafficking and other offenses. He was arrested in a Manhattan hotel lobby six months after federal investigators searched his luxury homes in Los Angeles and Miami. He has been in federal pretrial detention since, and is currently being held without bail at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center.

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