The Jane Doe who accused rap mogul Jay-Z of sexual assault has formally recanted her claims, stating in court documents that her claims were false and that she never met him.
“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 anonymous woman wrote in the 12-page declaration, which was reviewed by CBS News. Shawn Carter is Jay-Z’s legal name. “There is no truth to any of my claims against Mr. Carter.”
The woman said that she understood her “false accusations have caused Mr. Carter immense pain, suffering and damage that can never be fully undone.”
The woman previously claimed that she had been raped by Carter and Sean “Diddy” Combs while a third person watched. The initial lawsuit, filed in October 2024 and amended to include Carter in December 2024, alleged that the woman was invited to a Video Music Awards afterparty when she was a teen. She alleged that after accepting a drink at the afterparty, she began to feel lightheaded and went to lie down. She then alleged that Carter, Combs and another woman entered the room, and that Combs and Carter raped her with the woman present.
In her statement recanting the claims against Carter, the woman said she had seen a Facebook ad looking for people who might have sexual assault claims against Combs, who is serving a four-year sentence for prostitution-related charges. She said the ad triggered memories of being raped as a teenager. When she contacted the company on the ad, she was connected with the Buzbee Law Firm, she said.
In her declaration, the woman said that the initial October 2024 lawsuit was filed by Tony Buzbee and his firm without her knowledge. She said that in January 2025, after the suit was amended to include Carter, she began to doubt her claims against him and that “I ever went to a party with celebrities.” She claimed that her lawyers dismissed her lawsuit after she told them that.
Carter has denied all allegations and sued the woman, Buzbee and the Texas-based law firm, accusing them of conspiring to pressure him into a secret financial settlement. Carter alleged that after he refused to pay an “extortionate demand letter” sent by Buzbee in October 2024, the lawsuit was amended to include him.
A malicious prosecution lawsuit against Buzbee and his law firm is ongoing in New York. Carter filed a notice Thursday saying he was voluntarily dismissing the woman as a defendant in the lawsuit.
He wrote that the “trauma” that he, his family and his loved ones have endured because of the allegations “can never be dismissed.”
The woman’s new lawyer, James Blair Newman Jr., said that 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.”
Buzbee continues to represent other plaintiffs who are suing Combs for sexual assault. Victims have alleged abuse at parties in New York, California and Florida. Combs’ lawyers have called Buzbee’s lawsuits “shameless publicity stunts, designed to extract payments from celebrities who fear having lies spread about them.”
