A legal case that sent shock waves through hip-hop and the entertainment industry has taken another turn after the woman who accused Jay-Z of sexually assaulting her as a teenager formally recanted her allegations.
The woman, identified in court documents as Jane Doe, said in a sworn federal court declaration that she never met Jay-Z, whose legal name is Shawn Carter, and that the accusations she made against him were false.
“There is no truth to any of my claims against Mr. Carter,” she said in the declaration.
The allegations became national news in December 2024 when Carter was added as a defendant to a lawsuit that initially targeted Sean “Diddy” Combs.
The woman alleged that Carter and Combs sexually assaulted her following the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards in New York when she was 13.
Carter denied the accusation from the beginning.
The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed with prejudice in February 2025, preventing the claims from being refiled. Carter later filed legal claims against the woman, attorney Tony Buzbee, and others involved in bringing the case.
Following the woman’s new declaration, Carter dismissed her as a defendant in his lawsuit. His legal dispute with Buzbee and others continues.
According to the declaration, the woman responded to a Facebook advertisement seeking people who believed they had been sexually assaulted by Combs. She said the advertisement caused her to revisit memories of an alleged assault from her childhood.
She later began questioning whether Carter was involved and whether she had attended the celebrity gathering described in the original lawsuit.
Her current attorney has said she continues to maintain that she was sexually assaulted but now says Carter was not involved.
Questions surrounding her account had emerged months earlier. During a December 2024 interview with NBC News, the woman acknowledged inconsistencies in portions of her story while continuing at the time to stand by the central allegation.
Buzbee has disputed her latest account, saying it conflicts with previous statements, interviews, recordings, and sworn declarations connected to the case.
The woman also stated that Carter and his representatives did not pay her to withdraw or change her allegations.
For Jay-Z, the accusations brought one of hip-hop’s most prominent figures into a broader wave of legal scrutiny surrounding the entertainment industry. The recantation changes a central part of that story, but litigation involving Carter and the attorneys connected to the original case remains unresolved.
