A woman who accused Jay-Z of sexually assaulting her when she was 13 has fully withdrawn her allegations, declaring that she has never even met the rapper.
The anonymous woman previously alleged the music mogul, real name Shawn Carter, and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs sexually assaulted her following an awards show in New York in 2000. She dropped her lawsuit against both men in early 2025, but has now gone significantly further by stating under oath that her allegations against Jay-Z were false.
Declaration filed in court
‘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 wrote in a 12-page declaration filed in Manhattan federal court.
‘There is no truth to any of my claims against Mr Carter,’ she continued. ‘I understand my false accusations have caused Mr Carter immense pain, suffering, and damage that can never be fully undone.’
The woman also said she had not been promised or given money in exchange for making the declaration. Her 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. He added that the allegations concerning the 56-year-old rapper were false and said the woman ‘sincerely and unconditionally apologizes to Mr Carter and his family’.
Legal context and original lawsuit
The development comes amid Jay-Z’s ongoing legal action against attorney Tony Buzbee and his Texas law firm over their handling of the original case. The woman had also been named as a defendant in Jay-Z’s malicious-prosecution lawsuit, but he has now voluntarily dismissed his claims against her.
Her original lawsuit, filed in October 2024, accused Combs of raping her at the age of 13 and initially referred to a second alleged attacker only as an unnamed male celebrity. The complaint was amended two months later to name Jay-Z, who vehemently denied the allegation from the outset.
Soon after the accusation became public, the woman acknowledged there were problems with parts of her account, telling NBC News she had ‘made some mistakes’ while pointing out that more than two decades had passed since the alleged events. She ultimately voluntarily dismissed her lawsuit against Jay-Z and Combs in early 2025.
Woman’s account and response
In her latest declaration, the woman claimed she first came into contact with lawyers after responding to a Facebook advert seeking people with sexual assault allegations against Combs. She said the advert triggered memories of being raped when she was 13 and that she subsequently spoke to someone about her recollections.
However, she alleged her original lawsuit against Combs was filed without her knowledge and claimed her lawyers had not carried out an independent investigation before doing so. She said that by January 2025 she had begun questioning her allegations against Jay-Z and whether she had ever attended the celebrity party at the centre of her account.
Buzbee has disputed elements of her new version of events, telling Rolling Stone that multiple lawyers had heard the woman give the same account before she met him. He said that if she was now claiming she had lied to her lawyers and the court, that represented ‘new information’.
Buzbee and his co-counsel have sought to have Jay-Z’s malicious-prosecution case dismissed, describing it as ‘improper’ and ‘abusive’. They have argued that inconsistencies in the woman’s recollections did not necessarily mean her lawyers acted improperly, particularly given her allegation that she had been drugged and raped more than two decades earlier.
Jay-Z’s reaction
Jay-Z, meanwhile, has previously spoken about the toll the allegation took on him and his family. ‘It was hard. Really hard. I was heartbroken,’ he told GQ in an interview earlier this year. ‘We’re in a space now where it’s almost like consequence is not thought about enough because everything is so instant.’
The rap icon said the accusation ‘took a lot out’ of him and admitted he struggled to contain his anger after it was made public. ‘I was angry. I haven’t been that angry in a long time, uncontrollable anger,’ he said. ‘You don’t put that on someone – that’s a thing that you better be super sure… ‘I took that really hard. I knew that we were going to walk through that because, first of all, it’s not true. And the truth, at the end of the day, still reigns supreme.’
When the allegations first emerged, Jay-Z described the alleged crime as ‘heinous’ and said he ‘implored’ the woman to pursue a criminal case rather than a civil claim. But he said his greatest concern was the effect the accusation would have on his wife Beyoncé and their children.
‘My only heartbreak is for my family,’ he said at the time. ‘My wife and I will have to sit our children down, one of whom is at the age where her friends will surely see the press and ask questions about the nature of these claims, and explain the cruelty and greed of people. I mourn yet another loss of innocence.’
Jay-Z later accused Buzbee and his firm of attempting to pressure him into reaching a confidential financial settlement, claims Buzbee disputes. His remaining New York lawsuit alleges the lawyers should have known before proceeding that the allegations against him were inconsistent and unsupported.
Combs, who was also accused in the now-dismissed lawsuit, separately denied the woman’s allegations. He later faced a federal criminal trial on unrelated allegations and was convicted of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, while being acquitted of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges.
