The most striking detail here is not that the accusations are being walked back, it is that the woman says she disclosed mental health conditions to her legal team before they ever put Jay-Z’s name in a courtroom.
That admission sits at the center of a 12-page declaration filed in Manhattan federal court this week, in which the Jane Doe states plainly that Shawn Carter “never raped me,” that she has never met him, and that “there is no truth to any of my claims against Mr. Carter.”
The declaration was filed alongside a notice that Carter was voluntarily dropping the woman as a defendant in his ongoing malicious prosecution lawsuit against Texas attorney Tony Buzbee and his firm. The woman said she received no compensation for the filing, and signed it under penalty of perjury.
Her new attorney, James Blair Newman Jr., confirmed the shift in a statement that did not soften anything. “She was entirely mistaken in her allegations identifying Mr. Carter, and those allegations were false,” he said, adding that she “sincerely and unconditionally apologizes to Mr. Carter and his family.”
Carter’s side has been building toward this moment for over a year. He first sued the woman and her lawyers in federal court, accusing them of trying to pressure him into a secret financial settlement under threat of reputational destruction.
In a sworn declaration, he described receiving what he called an “existential threat,” writing that Buzbee was “placing a gun to my head” and that the situation caused him “mental anguish” about what it would do to his family and reputation.
The original lawsuit that started all of this was filed in October 2024 and primarily targeted Sean “Diddy” Combs, accusing him of raping the woman when she was 13.
Carter was added as an unnamed “male celebrity” defendant, then publicly identified in December 2024 after he refused to respond to what he called an extortionate demand letter.
He denied the allegations immediately and revealed he had already sued Buzbee in California state court the month prior using a John Doe pseudonym.
In her new declaration, the woman described how her claim began after she responded to a Facebook ad in late September or early October 2024 seeking people with assault claims against Combs.
She said the ad triggered memories of being raped at 13, and that she filled out a form and received a follow-up call.
She recalled saying she had attended an afterparty following the Teen Choice Awards in 2000, though her lawsuit later cited the MTV Video Music Awards as the event, one of several inconsistencies that emerged.
She also alleged that her initial lawsuit against Combs was filed without her knowledge and without any independent investigation by her legal team.
She said she was given $1,200 in cash when she traveled to Houston in December 2024 for an NBC News interview, and that her lawyers asked her to take a polygraph test afterward due to discrepancies in her account. She says she never received the results.
Buzbee, reached by email Thursday night, said he had not yet seen the new declaration. “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. He acknowledged she received “some petty cash” for meals and travel, and said each court filing “was explained in detail to Ms. Doe, to include the original demand letter.
The legal picture is still messy. Carter’s California extortion case was dismissed, and an appeals court upheld that ruling earlier this month, finding that Buzbee’s demand letter was protected speech sent in anticipation of litigation.
Associate Justice Anne Richardson wrote that “the record contains no evidence Buzbee accused Carter of raping Jane Doe while knowing those statements to be false.” That ruling leaves Carter’s malicious prosecution case in New York as his remaining active claim against Buzbee’s firm.
Buzbee’s team has called that New York lawsuit “improper” and “abusive,” arguing that representing a Jane Doe in a sexual assault civil case does not amount to misconduct and that memory inconsistencies from someone claiming to have been drugged and assaulted over two decades ago are not automatically suspicious.
Buzbee also continues to represent other plaintiffs in civil cases against Combs, whose lawyers have separately denied all allegations against him.
Carter’s New York malicious prosecution case is still very much alive, and the recantation filed this week will almost certainly become central evidence in it.
