Jay-Z Sues Former Accuser, Her Lawyer After Rape Lawsuit Suddenly Dropped

Jay-Z is suing the woman who filed a lawsuit accusing him of raping her in 2000 after an MTV Video Music Awards after-party.

The 55-year-old recording artist filed a suit against “Jane Doe” and her lawyer, Tony Buzbee, just weeks after the case was dropped without an explanation. Now Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, claims in a suit filed in Alabama that the original rape claims were “false,” “malicious,” and “strategically and tactically calculated and time to inflict maximum pain and suffering,” per Variety. 

Buzbee is the same attorney who has been filing multiple lawsuits against Sean “Diddy” Combs. Diddy is currently in a federal jail awaiting trial for alleged sex trafficking and other crimes.

Carter alleges that Doe filed the lawsuit “to obtain a payday.” The new filing notes that Buzbee sent him an “extortionate” demand letter prior to him being named as a defendant in the joint lawsuit against him and Diddy.

Jay-Z’s attorneys allege that Doe told Buzbee the rapper “did not sexually assault [her],” but say Buzbee “pushed [her] towards going forward with the false story against Mr. Carter” to extort money. 

The suit further states that Carter does not plan to reveal Doe’s identity but says he “does not commence this action lightly” and is attempting to “hold Doe accountable for her willful defamation per se and her malicious prosecution of knowingly false allegations,” the outlet added.

Buzbee issued a statement on the filing, saying the Alabama filing “has no legal merit.”

“Shawn Carter’s investigators have repeatedly harassed, threatened and harangued this poor woman for weeks trying to intimidate her and make her recant her story. She hasn’t, and won’t. Instead she has stated repeatedly she stands by her claims,” the lawyer said. 

He went on to call the proceedings “another attempt to intimidate and bully this poor woman.”

Carter has maintained his innocence since Doe’s lawsuit was first filed. “You have made a terrible error in judgment thinking that all ‘celebrities’ are the same,” the rapper said in part in December. “I’m not from your moral world. I’m a young man who made it out of the project of Brooklyn. We don’t play these types of games.”

Carter also expressed distress over his family being affected by the allegations, including his children.