A woman who accused Jay-Z of raping her when she was 13 years old has formally withdrawn her allegation, saying that she has never met the rap superstar.
The unnamed woman had originally made the allegation in a lawsuit filed in 2024, claiming that Jay-Z, real name Shawn Carter, had drugged and raped her with Sean Combs, known as P Diddy. The incident was alleged to have happened at a party after an MTV awards ceremony in 2000.
Jay-Z denied the allegations, describing them as a blackmail attempt, and Combs also denied them. Jay-Z’s lawyer maintained the events relied on an “impossible timeline”. The woman dropped the lawsuit in 2025, and Jay-Z filed a counter suit.
As that lawsuit progresses, the woman has now said her claims were false. “Shawn ‘Jay-Z’ Carter never raped me. I have never met or spoken to Mr Carter. Mr Carter never engaged in any inappropriate conduct toward me whatsoever,” she said in a declaration obtained by Rolling Stone.
Anyone that believes “we should believe women that report a sexual attack” should agree that this woman should face a very harsh penalty. If the penalty for making false accusations is not harsh enough, we can’t have a society that trusts these kinds of accusations.
(Some) rapes are very hard to prove, since the difference between consensual sex and rape is often “he said, she said”. In the cases where they are disproved “note that not-proved is not the same as disproved”, the accuser should be appropriately punished.
Trust is hard to build, easy to break and such a breach should be taken at least as seriously as the accusation.