Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter filed a defamation suit Monday against an Alabama woman who claimed he raped her when she was 13 in a since-withdrawn civil lawsuit.
Carter’s lawsuit said the woman, identified as Jane Doe, timed her claim “to inflict maximum pain and suffering on Mr. Carter” to extort payments from him.
The lawsuit also named the woman’s attorneys, Tony Buzbee and David Fortney, whom Jay-Z alleged “were soullessly motivated by greed, in abject disregard of the truth and the most fundamental precepts of human decency.”
The woman initially claimed that Jay-Z and Sean “Diddy” Combs took turns sexually assaulting her when she was 13 at a party following the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards. Both men denied the allegation.
Jane Doe withdrew her lawsuit last month after Carter raised questions about the veracity of her account and his attorney sought sanctions against Buzbee.
“Doe has now voluntarily admitted directly to representatives of Mr. Carter that the story brought before the world in court and on global television was just that: a false, malicious story. She has admitted that Mr. Carter did not assault her; and that indeed it was Buzbee himself … who pushed her to go forward with the false narrative of the assault by Mr. Carter in order to leverage a maximum payday,” Carter’s defamation lawsuit said.
“But the extortion and abuse of Mr. Carter by Doe and her lawyers must stop,” it continued.
In response, Buzbee released a statement saying, “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.”
“These same group of investigators have been caught on tape offering to pay people to sue me and my firm. After speaking with Jane Doe today, it appears that the quotes attributed to her in the lawsuit are completely made up, or they spoke to someone who isn’t Jane Doe.”
He added, “This is just another attempt to intimidate and bully this poor woman that we will deal with in due course. We won’t be bullied or intimidated by frivolous cases.”
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