Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter promised the truth would come to light after he was accused of sexual assault. And now, he got his wish in the form of an explosive recording phone call that gives the lawsuit against him a lot more context.
As The Root previously reported, the civil lawsuit against Carter was dropped with prejudice last month. The accuser, a Jane Doe, alleged Carter and Sean “Diddy” Combs raped her after the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards when she was just 13 years old. Since he was named as a defendant in December 2024, Jay and his legal team noted several inconsistencies within Doe’s story.
Although the matter has been settled legally, Jay promised to make Doe and her lawyer turned Jay-Z nemesis, Tony Buzbee, pay for the damage they allegedly caused to his reputation. Carter has since filed his own lawsuit against Doe and another against Buzbee, citing defamation and emotional distress.
But now, Jay’s lawsuits are taking a new form after Doe was allegedly heard on tape confessing that her previous sexual assault allegations against the rapper were indeed false. In the taped phone conversation, obtained by ABC News, the woman also claimed Buzbee pressured her to file the suit against Carter and Combs.
“But Jay-Z … He was just there, but he didn’t have anything to do with any sexual acts towards you?” one private investigator asked in the recording. “Yeah,” Doe said in response.
She even incriminated her own lawyer saying Buzbee “was the one that kind of pushed me towards going forward with him, with Jay-Z.” Doe claimed she had no clue why Buzbee would do such a thing, but in the end, she agreed to go along with his alleged plan to take the rapper down.
In response, Jay-Z’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, told “Good Morning America (GMA)” the recording “speaks for itself.” He continued saying, “[Doe] says in no uncertain terms, Mr. Carter did not do this. It is effectively a lie, and the only reason Mr. Carter is even involved in this is because she was pushed to involve him, pushed to include him by a lawyer.”
But despite Doe’s admission to allegedly lying on Jay, attorney Buzbee called accusations he put her up to the suit a “blatant lie.” To prove his point, the Texas lawyer sent “GMA” a recorded phone call he had with his client. “They say they have you on tape denying that Jay-Z assaulted you? Is that true?” Buzbee asked Doe on the phone call, to which she replied “No. No. I don’t – I’ve never said that.”
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Buzbee came to his client’s defense saying, “I spoke to Jane Doe immediately after being contacted by ABC. She has not admitted she lied. The opposite is true. Her position is very clear and has never changed,” he said before alleging the recording was fake. “The tape is a fabrication,” Buzbee continued.
Jane Doe has said she stands by her claims, in a sworn declaration. According to her, the only reason she dropped the suit against the two Hip-Hop moguls was because of “fear of intimidation and retaliation from Jay-Z” and his fans, according to ABC News.