A woman who alleged being sexually assaulted at age 13 by rappers Jay-Z and Sean “Diddy” Combs during a post-award show party now admits that there are inconsistencies with respect to her claims, and her attorney says he is continuing to investigate her story.
NBC News published those remarks from the unnamed woman and her attorney, the Houston-based personal injury specialist Tony Buzbee, in an interview on Friday evening. And Jay-Z, whose legal name is Shawn Carter, issued a statement saying the NBC interview validated his position that Buzbee and his client targeted him with a false complaint to gain money and fame for themselves.
“This incident didn’t happen and yet he filed it in court and doubled down in the press,” Jay-Z’s statement said of the highly publicized pending lawsuit linking him to criminally charged alleged sex trafficker Combs. “True Justice is coming. We fight FROM victory, not FOR victory. This was over before it began. This 1-800 lawyer doesn’t realize it yet, but, soon.”
In the piece with NBC, the plaintiff recounted how she was driven from Rochester, New York, to New York City for the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards before Combs’s limo driver offered her a lift to the afterparty. She described speaking with musician Benji Madden and his brother at the party in question before her father picked her up after her alleged assault.
However, a representative of the Madden brothers confirmed to NBC that the siblings were touring the midwestern US during the VMAs. And her father reportedly said he doesn’t remember what would have been a drive home of more than five hours.
A friend of the plaintiff supposedly drove her to the awards show, but she has since died, according to NBC’s reporting.
The woman – now reportedly living in Alabama – admitted to NBC that she made “some mistakes” when recalling the night that she says she was assaulted by Jay-Z and Combs. But she said she stood by her allegations: that Combs and Jay-Z raped her in a bedroom after she signed a nondisclosure agreement, ingested a drink that made her feel “woozy” and went to lie down. She said she fled to a nearby gas station after the alleged attack and from there called for a ride home.
Buzbee, in an email to the Associated Press, said his team’s job is to continue gathering facts and evidence whenever someone raises new issues that didn’t previously exist. He indicated that he would keep vetting the plaintiff’s account.
Meanwhile, Jay-Z’s attorney, Alex Spiro, has requested the dismissal of the case against the 24-time Grammy winner, saying in a statement: “It is stunning that a lawyer would not only file such a serious complaint without proper vetting, but would make things worse by further peddling this false story in the press.”
It remains to be seen what effect the victim’s acknowledgments to NBC may ultimately have on her case. Experts have long known sexual assault victims can “make incomplete, inconsistent or even untrue” statements because of disordered thinking resulting from trauma, as End Violence Against Women International noted in a 2008 report.
The lawsuit brought by Buzbee against Jay-Z and Combs forms part of a mound of sexual assault lawsuits aimed primarily against Combs as he remains jailed in New York awaiting trial on federal charges of sex trafficking filed against him in September.
Buzbee in October held a news conference announcing that he represents about 120 men and women with allegations of sexual misconduct against Combs, whose requests to be released from federal custody on bail have been denied three times.
Having established toll-free phone line for people with accusations against Combs, Buzbee’s firm soon began filing a series of lawsuits against the rap empresario.
Another prominent legal dispute involving Buzbee saw him pursue numerous sexual misconduct and assault lawsuits against NFL quarterback DeShaun Watson, most of which produced settlements for his clients. And he helped the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, win an acquittal in September 2023 at the politico’s impeachment trial on charges of bribery and dereliction of duty.
Jay-Z anonymously sued Buzbee in November on claims that the attorney was trying to extort money out of the rapper after sending him a letter threatening to go public with his client’s rape allegation if the musician didn’t pay up. Buzbee has characterized the letter to Jay-Z as an offer to mediate a financial settlement out of court before his client sued.
With Jay-Z rejecting a settlement, Buzbee’s client sued the music mogul on 9 December.
The Associated Press contributed reporting