A woman who accused American rapper Jay-Z of raping her when she was 13 has formally withdrawn her allegations, saying in a court declaration that she never met the musician and that her claims against him were false.
The woman, identified only as Jane Doe in court documents, made the statement in a declaration filed on September 24, 2026, in connection with Jay-Z’s ongoing legal battle involving her former attorney, Tony Buzbee.
In the declaration, she said Shawn Carter, known professionally as Jay-Z, never raped or sexually assaulted her and that she had never met or spoken to him. She also stated that there was no truth to her allegations against him and apologised for the harm she said the accusations had caused Carter, his family and his reputation.
The allegations first emerged in a civil lawsuit filed in December 2024. The woman alleged that Jay-Z and Sean “Diddy” Combs sexually assaulted her at a party following the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards when she was 13. Both men denied the allegations.
The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed in February 2025, with the dismissal preventing the same claims from being brought again. Jay-Z subsequently pursued legal action against the woman and lawyers involved in the case, alleging malicious prosecution and other wrongdoing.
The woman’s latest declaration forms part of that continuing legal dispute. Jay-Z’s lawyers filed the document after voluntarily dismissing her as a defendant in the malicious-prosecution case, according to reports.
In the declaration, the woman also provided an account of how she initially came forward. She said she responded to a Facebook advertisement seeking people with sexual-assault claims involving Combs and that the advertisement triggered memories of an assault she believed had happened when she was 13.
She said she subsequently became uncertain about her recollection and began questioning her allegations against Carter in January 2025. According to her declaration, she later told her lawyers about those doubts before the original lawsuit was withdrawn.
The woman’s current attorney, J. Blair Newman, said she maintains that she was a victim of sexual assault but was mistaken in identifying Jay-Z as the person who assaulted her. He said Carter did not rape or sexually assault her and that she had never met him.
Her former attorney, Tony Buzbee, has disputed aspects of the new account. In comments reported by Rolling Stone, Buzbee said he had not yet reviewed the new declaration and maintained that multiple lawyers had dealt with the woman before she was connected with his firm. He said she had previously given the same account to those lawyers.
The development is significant because the allegations against Jay-Z generated considerable public attention when they were filed in 2024. Carter strongly denied the accusation at the time and described the allegations as false.
The latest declaration does not, however, resolve all of the separate legal disputes surrounding the case. Jay-Z’s malicious-prosecution action against Buzbee and his law firm remains a separate proceeding, while the woman is no longer a defendant in that case.
The California legal dispute between Carter and Buzbee has also continued independently. According to NBC News, a California appeals court earlier in September 2026 upheld the dismissal of Carter’s separate lawsuit against Buzbee, meaning the New York malicious-prosecution case remains the principal legal dispute arising from the original allegations.
The latest development therefore marks a major reversal in the woman’s account of what happened in 2000, but the wider legal proceedings connected to the allegations have not all concluded.