Jay-Z rape accuser recants claims: ‘I have never met or spoken to Mr. Carter’

The anonymous woman previously claimed the rapper assaulted her alongside Sean “Diddy” Combs when she was 13 years old.MANHATTAN (CN) — An Alabama woman who accused hip-hop mogul Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter of raping her when she was a teenager has revealed in new court filings that there is actually “no truth” to any of those claims.The anonymous accuser made the bombshell admission in a 12-page declaration, filed late Thursday evening in the Southern District of New York, in which she stated that she never even met the rapper.“I have never met or spoken to Mr. Carter,” she wrote. “Mr. Carter never engaged in any inappropriate conduct toward me whatsoever.”The woman first made the claims in a 2024 lawsuit, in which she accused Carter, Sean “Diddy” Combs and a third unnamed celebrity of drugging and sexually assaulting her after the MTV Video Music awards in 2000, when she was just 13 years old. At the time, Carter vehemently denied her claims, likening them to a blackmail attempt.When the accuser dropped her case in early 2025, Carter countersued her and Tony Buzbee, the high-profile personal injury lawyer who represented her. Carter said the accusations were “malevolent efforts to assassinate [his] impeccable and lifetime-earned character.”The woman’s declaration was filed in response to the countersuit.“There is no truth to any of my claims against Mr. Carter,” she admitted. “I understand my false accusations have caused Mr. Carter immense pain, suffering, and damage that can never be fully undone.”She said she made the claims after coming across a Facebook ad looking for people who may have sexual assault claims against Combs, who at the time was freshly indicted on federal sex trafficking charges. That “triggered memories of being raped” when she was a minor, she said.She clicked the ad, which put her in touch with a law firm that, after a phone call detailing her accusations, filed the complaint on her behalf in October 2024.“I was never provided with a draft of the October complaint before it was filed,” she said, adding that it appeared to have been filed “without conducting any independent investigation, background inquiry or due diligence, and without obtaining any corroboration of the allegations.”She recalled being concerned when Carter started filing his own litigation against Buzbee related to her own claims. She also suggested she was battling mental health conditions — details of which have been redacted from the filing — that may have affected her memory.“No one told me that I was at risk of being sued by Mr. Carter, or that I should obtain independent counsel,” she said.Nonetheless, she pressed on with the litigation, signing declarations and even sitting for an NBC News interview in late 2024 at the direction of the legal team. She only met Buzbee once during that time at a Houston coffee shop, where he gave her $1,000 in cash for her and her family, she said.It wasn’t until early 2025 that the woman began to doubt her claims against Carter and, in February of that year, greenlit the lawsuit’s dismissal.“I also began doubting that I ever went to party with celebrities, and that Mr. Combs or [redacted] were involved in any attack on me,” she said.Buzbee, who represents numerous individuals who have accused Combs of sexual misconduct, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Courthouse News on Friday. But the lawyer told Rolling Stone: “If for some reason now she is claiming she lied to us and the court, that’s new information.”A representative for Combs also did not immediately return requests for a statement.Dozens of plaintiffs are still pursuing actions against Combs, who is currently serving a four-year federal prison sentence after he was convicted on prostitution charges in July 2025. He was acquitted on the sex trafficking charges, however, which saved him from potentially serving decades behind bars.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads