Shawn Carter, known professionally as Jay-Z, is fighting back against a lawsuit alleging that he raped a 13-year-old girl alongside Sean “Diddy” Combs in 2000.
A civil lawsuit filed against Combs by a Jane Doe in the Southern District of New York in October was amended and refiled on Dec. 8 to include the rapper and Roc Nation business mogul as a defendant.
The plaintiff alleges that Combs and Carter sexually assaulted her at a private after-party hosted by Combs following the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards. When Doe initially filed her lawsuit, it alleged that an unidentified male celebrity (“Celebrity A”) victimized her alongside Combs. It also stated that a female celebrity (“Celebrity B”), whose identity has not been made public, watched.
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Carter — who is married to Beyoncé — posted a statement on the Roc Nation X account denying the “heinous” and “idiotic” allegations. He slammed Doe’s Texas-based personal injury lawyer, Tony Buzbee, who is bringing over 120 lawsuits against Combs on the heels of Combs’s sex trafficking criminal case, alleging that Buzbee tried to blackmail him by sending a “demand letter” before adding Carter to the complaint.
Combs previously denied wrongdoing through his attorneys.
Buzbee told the Washington Post that the demand letter his firm sent to Carter on behalf of Doe, who resides in Alabama, requested “a confidential mediation,” not a monetary payment.
Carter’s attorney Alex Spiro has already filed a motion asking the court to deny Doe from being able to proceed anonymously in this case or to dismiss the case altogether.
Doe’s lawsuit allegations against Carter
Yahoo Entertainment obtained Doe’s revised lawsuit, which was filed Dec. 8. It claims “Combs and Carter took turns assaulting the minor,” who believes her drink was spiked, while “another celebrity stood by and watched.”
Doe claimed that on Sept. 7, 2000, she went to Radio City Music Hall to try to attend the VMAs. The then-13-year-old, who had no ticket, couldn’t get in and watched from outside on a jumbotron.
She talked to limo drivers parked outside to find out the location of the after-party. She claimed one allegedly worked for Combs and told her “Combs liked younger girls” and she “‘fit what Diddy was looking for.’” The driver said he would take Combs to the party and come back and pick her up at the same spot.
Sean “Diddy” Combs with then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez arriving at the 2000 MTV VMAS at Radio City Music Hall. (Frank Micelotta/ImageDirect)
When Doe got into the car, it was an “approximately 20-minute” drive from midtown Manhattan to the party — no exact location is noted other than it was held at a “large white residence with a gated U-shaped driveway.”
At Combs’s after-party, Doe claimed she was asked to sign what she now believes was a nondisclosure agreement (NDA). She walked around and “recognized many celebrities” and “observed widespread drug use, including marijuana and cocaine.” Doe said she accepted a drink from a waitress and immediately felt “woozy and lightheaded, making her need to lie down.” She did so in an empty bedroom.
“Soon after, Combs entered the room, along with defendant Carter and a female celebrity,” Doe’s complaint states. She claimed Combs came at her “aggressively” with a “crazed look in his eyes.” She said he asked if she was “ready to party” and then threw her toward a wall and then onto the bed.
“At that point, Carter began removing [Doe’s] clothes as she grew more and more disoriented,” the complaint alleges. “[Doe] was held down by Carter as he vaginally raped her, while Combs and Celebrity B watched. After Carter finished … Combs then stepped forward and vaginally raped [Doe] while Carter and Celebrity B watched.”
Jay-Z at the 2000 MTV VMAs. (Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc)
Doe claimed Combs then attempted to force her to perform oral sex, but she started punching and hit him in the neck. She said Combs “backed away in surprise,” giving her a chance to grab her shoes and dress — which she wrapped around herself like a towel. She said she “ran around the residence until she found the front door and was able to leave the party.” She said no one at the party attempted to help her.
Once she fled the house, Doe said she put on her clothes and ran to a gas station. A female clerk noticed she was in distress and allowed her to use the phone to call her father, who picked her up.
The complaint states Doe experienced “deep depression” after the sexual assault and it “continues to affect every facet of her life.” She has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and has a seizure disorder caused by stress and trauma.
According to Doe’s complaint, prior to refiling her amended lawsuit to include Carter, her counsel sent a legal letter to Carter “requesting a mediation to resolve this matter.” It claims Carter’s lawyers responded to the letter “by filing an utterly frivolous lawsuit” and accused Carter’s team of “orchestrating a conspiracy of harassment, bullying and intimidation against [Doe’s] lawyers, their families, employees and former associates in an attempt to silence [Doe] from naming Jay-Z.”
Doe’s attorneys claim the effort was to “scare” her and “discredit her counsel.” She refiled the amended lawsuit “as a result of the egregious conduct perpetuated by Carter.”
Carter files to dismiss lawsuit
On Dec. 9, Carter’s attorney Spiro, who got Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter case dismissed in July, filed a motion denying Doe’s request to proceed without being publicly named or to have the lawsuit dismissed.
The motion stated that for months, “an extortionate campaign” targeted Carter to “force payment of an exorbitant sum of money” — “millions” — “irrespective of the truth.” When Carter “refused to pay” and instead anonymously filed a lawsuit on Nov. 18 against Buzbee and his law firm for “extortionate conduct,” Doe’s amended lawsuit was filed and the “patently false” and “unfounded” allegations are now public.
According to Carter’s filing, this has all played out “under cover of darkness” and they are “seeking either dismissal of the allegations or” for Doe to “refile her complaint with her true name.”
Carter’s lawyer said Doe’s amended complaint makes clear that her case is “not [about] justice, but a quick and large settlement against a celebrity.” It further claims that Buzbee is behind a “sprawling extortion saga” in which he tries to extract large settlements from celebrities, high-net-worth individuals, and businesses with any public ties to Sean Combs.”
In this case, Carter’s attorney calls him “an upstanding public figure who has never been accused of anything like this in his life” and notes the star will “vigorously defend himself and expose the truth: that the allegations in the complaint are false.”
Carter and Combs have denied Doe’s allegations
In Carter’s statement on Sunday, the 24-time Grammy winner denied Doe’s “heinous” allegations and accused “deplorable” Buzbee of “a blackmail attempt.”
He said his “only heartbreak” was for his family because he and Beyoncé will have to sit their kids down, amid the very public headlines, to talk to them about the “nature of these claims.” He said they would also explain to the children “the cruelty and greed of people.”
Carter said his “heart and support goes out to true victims in the world, who have to watch how their life story is dressed in costume for profitability by this ambulance chaser in a cheap suit.”
Sean Combs and Jay-Z at the 2020 Roc Nation brunch. (Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Roc Nation)
Combs — who is currently in Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., ahead of his 2025 trial on three felony counts of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution, previously denied Doe’s allegations.
“Mr. Combs and his legal team have full confidence in the facts, their legal defenses, and the integrity of the judicial process. In court, the truth will prevail: that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted anyone — adult or minor, man or woman,” his lawyers said in a statement in October.
The identity of “Celebrity B” remains unknown to the public at this point.
This lawsuit is among more than 30 complaints filed against Combs in the past year. Buzbee alone has said he plans to bring 120 individual sexual assault lawsuits against the Bad Boy Entertainment founder.
Cuba Gooding Jr. was also named a co-defendant in a sexual assault and harassment lawsuit filed against Combs by music producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones. Within Jones’s allegations against Combs, he claimed Gooding sexually harassed and assaulted him on Combs’s yacht. Gooding denied the allegations.
