Jay-Z rape accuser formally withdraws allegation

A woman who had accused rapper Jay-Z of raping her when she was 13 has formally withdrawn the allegation, stating in a new court filing that she never met the music mogul and that her claims were false, according to BBC News.

The woman, identified in legal documents only as Jane Doe, originally filed a lawsuit in 2024 alleging that she had been drugged and raped by Jay-Z, whose legal name is Shawn Carter, and by Sean "Diddy" Combs at a party following the MTV Video Music Awards in 2000. Both men denied the allegations at the time. The woman later dropped the lawsuit last year, after which Carter filed his own suit against her and her legal team.

In a statement submitted as part of that ongoing case, the woman wrote that Carter never raped her and that she had never met or spoken with him, according to BBC News. She said there was no truth to any of her claims against him, and that she recognized the false accusations had caused him significant harm that could not be fully undone.

Carter had strongly denied the accusations from the outset, calling them a "blackmail attempt" and describing them as frivolous and fictitious, BBC News reported. When the woman withdrew her original lawsuit in February 2025, Carter, who is married to singer Beyoncé, said the ordeal had caused lasting trauma for his family.

The woman, from Alabama, has now been removed from Carter's lawsuit. She stated that she had not received any payment from Carter or anyone connected to him, and that she was not compensated for issuing her latest statement, according to the report.

Carter's lawsuit against the woman's former legal team, led by attorney Tony Buzbee, is continuing. Buzbee told Rolling Stone, which first reported on the new declaration, that he had not yet seen it. He said several lawyers had worked with the woman prior to his involvement and that she had given them a consistent account of her allegations, adding that any claim she had lied to him and the court would amount to new information.

When Carter first sued the woman and her lawyers in early 2025, Buzbee had alleged that investigators working for Carter pressured the woman for weeks in an effort to get her to retract her story. In her new statement, however, the woman said she never received any threats from Carter or anyone acting for him, BBC News reported.

Describing how the allegation arose, the woman said she came across a Facebook advertisement in the fall of 2024 seeking people with potential sexual assault claims against Combs. She said the ad brought back memories of being raped at 13. After being contacted by a law firm, she said she was not shown a draft of the lawsuit and had not approved its contents before it was filed in October 2024. She further said the legal team filed the case without conducting any independent investigation or verifying her account.

Combs has denied the allegations made by the woman, with his legal representatives previously characterizing the case as one of several pursued by an attorney more interested in publicity than legal substance, according to BBC News. Buzbee also represents a number of other individuals who have brought claims against Combs.

Combs was convicted in July 2025 on prostitution-related charges involving two former girlfriends and is currently serving a four-year prison sentence, BBC News noted. The BBC said it had reached out to Buzbee for further comment.