Key Facts
- An anonymous woman who accused Jay-Z and Sean “Diddy†Combs of raping her when she was 13 has withdrawn those allegations in a declaration filed in federal court in New York on Thursday, Sept. 24.
- The woman, identified in court as Jane Doe, now says Jay-Z, whose legal name is Shawn Carter, never raped her and that she has never met or spoken to him. She also says Combs did not rape her.
- Her original civil lawsuit, filed in 2024 and amended to name Carter, concerned an alleged assault after the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards. She dropped that lawsuit in February 2025.
- Carter has consistently denied the accusation. He later sued the woman and her former lawyers, alleging defamation and malicious prosecution; those claims have not been established by a court.
- Carter has now voluntarily dismissed the woman as a defendant in his suit. His case against attorney Tony Buzbee and Buzbee’s law firm continues, according to CBS News.
- The woman’s new lawyer says she still maintains that she experienced sexual assault but was mistaken in identifying Carter. That position should not be confused with the original, now-recanted allegation against him.
NEW YORK — The woman who accused Jay-Z of raping her as a teenager has formally recanted her allegation, telling a federal court that she never met the rapper and that her claims against him were false.
The woman, known publicly only as Jane Doe, made the statement in a declaration filed Thursday, Sept. 24, in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Her original civil lawsuit had accused Jay-Z, whose legal name is Shawn Carter, and Sean “Diddy†Combs of assaulting her in 2000, when she said she was 13. She dismissed that suit in 2025.
“Shawn ‘Jay-Z’ Carter never raped me. I have never met or spoken to Mr. Carter,†the woman wrote in the new declaration. She said Carter had never engaged in inappropriate conduct toward her. Reuters reported that she also said Combs had not raped her.
The declaration is the latest, and most consequential, development in a legal dispute that began with an anonymous civil complaint, continued after that case was dropped and now centers on Carter’s claims against the woman’s former legal team. Carter has dismissed the woman from his own lawsuit. His allegations against her former lawyers remain contested.
The question “Who accused Jay-Z?†has a limited public answer: it was an anonymous woman identified as Jane Doe in court papers. Her name has not been made public in the reporting reviewed for this article, and her recantation changes how the accusation must be described. It is not accurate to repeat her 2024 claim as though it remains her account today.
How the original allegation arose
The woman’s original lawsuit alleged that Carter and Combs assaulted her at a gathering following the MTV Video Music Awards in New York in September 2000. She said she was 13 at the time. The case was filed in October 2024 against Combs and amended in December of that year to name Carter. Those were civil allegations, not findings by a court.
Carter denied the accusation from the outset. The woman voluntarily dismissed her civil lawsuit in February 2025. The dismissal ended that case without a trial or judicial determination that its allegations were true or false. Carter subsequently brought his own legal action against her and lawyers involved in filing the case.
The woman’s new declaration goes further than dropping the case. She expressly retracts the allegations. “There is no truth to any of my claims against Mr. Carter,†she wrote, according to court documents reviewed by Reuters and CBS News. She also stated that she was not being paid to make the declaration.
A recantation is a statement by the person who made the original claim. It is significant evidence about what she now says happened, but it does not by itself adjudicate every issue in Carter’s separate lawsuit, including what her former attorneys knew or whether they breached any legal duty. Those questions require their own evidence and process.
What the woman says about her former lawyers
In her declaration, the woman described contacting a law firm after seeing a Facebook advertisement seeking people who might have claims involving Combs. She said it prompted memories of a sexual assault when she was younger. After she submitted an online form, she was connected with lawyers who filed a complaint on her behalf.
She now alleges that her former lawyers filed the initial complaint without conducting an independent investigation or obtaining corroboration. She said she did not see a draft of the original complaint before it was filed. Those assertions are her account of the lawyers’ conduct; they are not judicial findings.
She also described coming to doubt, in early 2025, whether she had attended a party with celebrities and whether Carter or Combs had been involved in an attack. She agreed to dismiss the original lawsuit in February of that year.
Attorney Tony Buzbee, whose firm handled the original case, told Rolling Stone, as quoted by Courthouse News Service, that if the woman was now saying she had lied to her lawyers and the court, it was new information to him. Courthouse News said Buzbee did not immediately respond to its request for comment. His response matters because the woman’s account of the filing process is contested; it should not be presented as an established account of what the lawyers did.
The woman’s current lawyer, James Blair Newman Jr., offered a distinction that is essential to the story. He said she maintains that she was a victim of sexual assault but was “entirely mistaken†in identifying Carter. His statement expressly rejects the allegations against Carter without purporting to resolve every question about what the woman experienced.
What has changed in Carter’s case
After the original lawsuit was dismissed, Carter sued the woman, Buzbee and Buzbee’s firm. Carter alleged that the accusation damaged his reputation and that the defendants had sought to pressure him into a settlement. Those are allegations in Carter’s litigation, not conclusions reached by a court.
Following the woman’s declaration, Carter’s lawyers filed a notice voluntarily dismissing her as a defendant. CBS News reported that his malicious-prosecution action against Buzbee and the law firm remains ongoing in New York. A dismissal of one defendant does not end the claims against the others.
In a statement cited by CBS News, Carter said the harm he and his family experienced from the accusation could not simply be erased. Representatives for Carter had no further comment when contacted by Reuters. Attorneys for Combs did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment on the recantation.
There is no basis in the available reporting to describe the remaining legal case as won or lost. Its outcome will depend on the pleadings, evidence and any court rulings that follow.
The original allegation involving Carter was separate from the federal criminal case that resulted in Combs’ conviction in 2025 on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution and a 50-month prison sentence. The woman’s withdrawn lawsuit should not be conflated with the conduct adjudicated in that criminal case or with other civil claims involving Combs.
What remains unclear
The new filing answers the central question about the woman’s present position: she says Carter did not assault her, she never met him and the earlier allegation was false. She also retracts the accusation against Combs.
It does not establish exactly how the mistaken identification arose, whether everyone involved in preparing the original complaint understood the same facts at the same time, or how the remaining litigation will end. The woman’s description of her memory, contact with lawyers and review of the complaint provides one account. Her former lawyers may dispute it, and a court has not resolved those issues.
Nor does a recantation in this case justify broad claims about other people who report sexual assault. The record here is specific: one anonymous plaintiff made an allegation against named individuals, withdrew her suit and later filed a declaration saying that allegation was false. Professional reporting must follow that record without treating it as a verdict on unrelated cases.
The woman’s identity also remains protected in public reporting. Identifying details are not necessary to understand the filing, Carter’s response or the continuing dispute with her former legal team.
Why the development matters
The declaration materially changes the public record surrounding one of the most prominent entertainment-related civil accusations of recent years. Carter had denied it; the woman who made it has now repudiated it in a court filing. Reports about the case must lead with that development, not bury it beneath a repetition of the original charge.
The case also shows why the stages of civil litigation must be distinguished. Filing a complaint is not proof of its allegations. Voluntarily dismissing a lawsuit is not the same as a verdict. A later recantation provides a clear account of what the former plaintiff now says, but it does not automatically decide a separate claim against her former lawyers.
The immediate legal consequence is that the woman is no longer a defendant in Carter’s suit, while the case against Buzbee and his firm continues. Future filings or rulings—not speculation about motives, will determine what can be established about how the original accusation reached court.
For now, the answer to the story’s central question is precise. An anonymous woman identified as Jane Doe accused Jay-Z in an amended 2024 civil lawsuit. In a declaration filed Sept. 24, 2026, she said that accusation was false and that she had never met him.
