According to New York court filings made on Friday, February 14, the lawsuit against JAY-Z and Sean “Diddy” Combs over the alleged rape of a 13-year-old girl in 2000 has officially been dismissed by the attorney representing the Jane Doe in question.
Filed by attorneys Tony Buzbee and Antigone Curis, the voluntary dismissal, claimed that the Jane Doe who accused the musicians of sexual assault “hereby gives notice that the above-captioned Action is voluntarily dismissed, with prejudice.” The “with prejudice,” part of which assures the suit cannot be refiled as it is in its present form.
Following the dismissal, Roc Nation, the entertainment company owned by JAY-Z issued a statement signed by JAY, using his real name, Shawn Carter, in which he called the outcome a “victory,” despite the trauma it caused for his wife and children.
“Today is a victory. The frivolous, fictitious and appalling allegations have been dismissed,” he began. “This civil suit was without merit and never going anywhere. The fictional tale they created was laughable, if not for the seriousness of the claims. I would not wish this experience on anyone. The trauma that my wife, my children, loved ones and I have endured can never be dismissed. This 1-800 lawyer gets to file a suit hiding behind Jane Doe, and when they quickly realize that the money grab is going to fail, they get to walk away with no repercussions. The system has failed. The court must protect victims, OF COURSE, while with the same ethical responsibility, the courts must protect the innocent from being accused without a shred of evidence. May the truth prevail for all victims and those falsely accused equally.”
JAY-Z’s attorney, Alex Spiro, also issued out his own statement, saying, “The false case against JAY-Z, that never should have been brought, has been dismissed with prejudice. By standing up in the face of heinous and false allegations, Jay has done what few can – he pushed back, he never settled, he never paid 1 red penny, he triumphed and cleared his name.”
The suit was initially filed by the Jane Doe against Combs in October, adding JAY-Z’s name to the suit two months later. In the suit she alleged that Combs and JAY-Z raped her in 2000 after they had brought her to an MTV Music Video Awards afterparty.
Quick to blast and condemn the claims as soon as his name was involved, JAY-Z announced that his lawyer was sent “blackmail” in an effort to pressure him into settling out of court. Noting the alleged threats had the “opposite effect” and instead enflamed him to expose his accuser for “the fraud [they] are in a VERY public fashion.”
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Since then there has been an onslaught of court filings and a public back-and-forth between JAY-Z, Roc Nation and Buzbee. All of which came to a head when the Jane Doe gave an interview that damaged her credibility as she claimed that “not all the facts are clear” in her recollection of the night’s events. “I have made some mistakes. I may have made a mistake in identifying,” she said.
The following month, after securing permissions from United States District Judge Analisa Torres, JAY-Z filed a motion to dismiss the ongoing lawsuit. The request claimed that there were a series of inconsistencies in the woman’s account.
While the case against JAY-Z has been dismissed, Combs, who been in prison at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York since September 2024 on charges of racketeering and sex trafficking, still faces dozens of lawsuits that have been filed over the past year. Denied bail three times, Combs will remain incarcerated until his trial on May 5, 2025, when it could be determined that he could face life in prison.