Jay-Z Accuser Recants Rape Allegation as Buzbee’s Lawyers Challenge Her Declaration

The woman who accused Jay-Z of raping her when she was 13 has formally recanted the allegation, stating in a court declaration that the rapper never assaulted her and that she has never met him. The Jay-Z accuser recants filing has since opened a new legal fight. Her former lawyers are challenging the declaration, while Jay-Z is using it to try to revive a case he lost in California.

The declaration was filed on Thursday, Sept. 24, in US District Court for the Southern District of New York. It is part of the lawsuit that the billionaire rapper, whose legal name is Shawn Carter, brought after the original 2024 civil case was dropped.

What the declaration says

“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 woman wrote, according to Reuters, the BBC and CBS News, which said it reviewed the filing.

The woman, identified in court papers only as Jane Doe, also said there was “no truth to any of my claims” against Carter. According to the BBC, she wrote that her claims that Carter and Sean “Diddy” Combs raped her while a third celebrity watched are false. She added that she understood her accusations had caused Carter “immense pain, suffering, and damage that can never be fully undone.”

She said she had not been paid to make the declaration and had received no money from Carter or anyone acting for him, Reuters and the BBC reported. She also wrote that she “never received any threat from Mr. Carter or anyone acting on his behalf.”

Her new attorney, James Blair Newman Jr., told CBS News 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.”

How the original lawsuit was filed

In the filing, the woman described how the case began. She said she saw a Facebook ad in September or October 2024 seeking people who might have sexual assault claims against Combs, and that “the ad triggered memories of being raped when I was 13 years old,” the BBC reported. She filled out an online form and was then contacted by a law firm, according to Reuters.

She said a lawsuit was filed on her behalf weeks later without her being given a draft to review. She also said her lawyers at the time filed it “without conducting any independent investigation, background inquiry, or due diligence, and without obtaining any corroboration of the allegations,” Reuters reported.

The October 2024 complaint alleged she was assaulted at a party after the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards. It was amended in December 2024 to name Carter, according to CBS News. CBS reported that the declaration says she began to doubt her claims against Carter in January 2025, and that her lawyers dismissed the suit after she told them so. She dropped the case in February 2025, the BBC reported.

Buzbee’s lawyers push back

Buzbee’s side disputes the new account. In a filing in New York on Friday, Sept. 25, one of his lawyers called the retraction a “bought-and-paid-for declaration,” Rolling Stone reported, although the lawyer offered no evidence to support that assertion. The lawyer argued that Carter’s team knew the recantation contradicted the woman’s earlier sworn statements. She also noted that Carter’s lawyers had previously described the woman as an unreliable witness.

“In sum, there is no evidence that when the Buzbee Parties relied on Jane Doe’s multiple declarations they knew her to be a perjurer. Carter and his attorneys lack the same excuse,” Buzbee’s lawyer, Jessica N. Meyers of Sheppard Mullin, wrote in a letter to the court, according to Rolling Stone. Buzbee’s attorneys have asked the court to strike the declaration, Billboard reported.

Reached by email on Sept. 24, Buzbee defended himself. “We have multiple lawyers (at least four) who dealt with Ms. Doe long before she met me. She gave the exact same story to each,” he wrote, according to Rolling Stone. “If for some reason now she is claiming she lied to us and the court, that’s new information.”

Carter’s two cases

After the original suit was dismissed, Carter sued the woman, Buzbee and his firm in federal court for malicious prosecution. According to CBS, he alleged they conspired to pressure him into a secret financial settlement. On Sept. 24, Carter filed a notice voluntarily dismissing the woman as a defendant, CBS News reported. The case against Buzbee and his firm continues.

Separately, Carter is trying to revive an extortion and defamation lawsuit he filed against Buzbee in California in 2024. A lower court dismissed that case, and earlier this month California’s Second Appellate District upheld the dismissal. “The record contains no evidence Buzbee accused Carter of raping Jane Doe while knowing those statements to be false or with reckless disregard as to whether they were true,” Associate Justice Anne Richardson wrote for the panel, Rolling Stone reported.

In a petition for rehearing reported by Rolling Stone on Monday, Sept. 28, Carter called the retraction “explosive new evidence.” “Jane Doe’s declaration proves that discovery would yield evidence supporting Carter’s claims. Fairness and due process require this court to grant rehearing,” the filing argues. It asks for limited discovery if the court sends the case back.

Carter has denied the original allegations throughout, previously calling them “frivolous, fictitious and appalling.”

Separate from the Combs criminal case

The recanted allegation is not connected to Combs’ criminal case. Combs denied the woman’s claims when they were made, according to the BBC. Reuters reported that her original claim was unrelated to the case that led to his 2025 conviction and 50-month prison sentence on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. Buzbee continues to represent other people who have made allegations against Combs; those cases are separate from this declaration.

What happens next

Two courts now have decisions to make. In New York, the judge must deal with the request to strike the declaration as Carter’s case against Buzbee and his firm moves ahead. In California, the appeals court must decide whether to rehear its ruling. No ruling on the merits of Carter’s claims has been reported.