Jay-Z in 2024 at the “Mufasa: The Lion King” premiere in Los Angeles
Gilbert Flores/Variety
The Jane Doe who recently dismissed a lawsuit claiming Jay-Z raped her alongside Sean Combs when she was 13 years old was captured on an audio recording agreeing with private investigators that Jay-Z did not assault her.
In the recording, first reported by ABC News and independently obtained by Rolling Stone, the woman also appears to claim that her lawyer, Tony Buzbee, “pushed” her to sue Jay-Z.
The new recording was made at the woman’s Alabama home by investigators associated with the Roc Nation mogul, born Shawn Carter. In court filings, the investigators declared under oath that the woman spoke with them on her front porch on Feb. 21 and “engaged in conversation freely” with a relaxed tone.
“He was just there, but he didn’t have anything to do with the any sexual acts towards you. It was strictly …” one investigator asked the woman, her voice trailing off.
“Yeah,” Doe replied. The other investigator then asked her if it was Buzbee who suggested Jay-Z had a role in the alleged attack that was said to have occurred at an afterparty for the MTV Video Music Awards in 2000.
“He was the one that kind of pushed me towards going forward with him, with Jay-Z,” the woman replied. Asked why Buzbee would do that, the woman said she didn’t know.
Buzbee blasted the recording today in a statement sent to Rolling Stone. “Her position is very clear and has never changed. The tape is a pieced-together fabrication. The investigators tormented and harassed and tricked that poor woman and took what she said out of context and secretly recorded her. She stands by her claim that Jay-Z was there at the party and that [he] assaulted her. She has never wavered on that point, not once,” Buzbee said.
The high-powered Texas lawyer shared with ABC News his own recorded conversation with the Jane Doe. “They say that they have you on tape denying that Jay-Z assaulted you. Is that true?” Buzbee asks the woman in the recording.
“No, no. I don’t. I’ve never said that,” the woman responds. She also denied during the call with Buzbee that she told the investigators Buzbee put her up to the accusation to get money.
In court filings, a different private investigator associated with Carter claimed the woman has “a legally-documented history of mental health issues.” Rolling Stone has learned the woman’s identity and confirmed several of the publicly available court filings reference by the investigator. (Rolling Stone is not naming the woman.) In one case in family court, a doctor testified in a 2015 deposition that Doe told him years prior that she had a history of auditory hallucinations. “She told me that she has heard voices in the past,” the doctor testified, “voices that other people don’t hear.”
In a separate motion filed by Doe in February 2023 and obtained by Rolling Stone, she and her lawyer at the time asked a judge to transfer her to mental health court for a pending matter. Her lawyer described her as having a “large volume of medical/mental health disorders.” Doe was under the supervision of the mental health court as recently as Aug. 19, 2024, documents show.
Asked about the woman’s mental health status, Buzbee said the question was improper. “I’m not her psychologist,” he responded in an email. “I think it’s inappropriate to attack her on alleged past mental health issues in light of her assertions. That’s the ultimate in low.”
On Dec. 13, the woman spoke with NBC News and first acknowledged inconsistencies in her story. After initially telling the outlet she mingled with musician Benji Madden at the party, she later admitted she may have misidentified people. The concession came after a representative for Madden said the Good Charlotte guitarist was on tour in a different state at the time and did not attend the VMAs that year. The woman’s father also said he did not recall picking her up at a gas station after the alleged rape, as she alleged. He said he lived far upstate at the time and would have remembered driving five hours to retrieve her. “So I have made some mistakes,” the woman said in a follow-up interview, standing by her claims. “I may have made a mistake in identifying [Madden].”
Carter is now suing both Buzbee and the Jane Doe for defamation in two separate lawsuits. His first lawsuit was filed against Buzbee in Los Angeles County last November. He initially sued for extortion but later added the defamation claim. He filed his subsequent lawsuit against Jane Doe in Alabama earlier this month. (Buzbee also was sued in the latter complaint under claims for malicious prosecution, abuse of process, and civil conspiracy.)
In a sworn statement filed in the Los Angeles case last month, Carter said that he first received a demand letter from Buzbee seeking private mediation last November in anticipation of a lawsuit, and he considered it an “existential threat.” “I felt that Mr. Buzbee was placing a gun to my head that I either bow to his demands or endure personal and financial ruin. His actions caused me mental anguish about the ticking time bomb and what it would do to me, my family, and my hard-earned reputation,” he wrote.
A prominent Texas lawyer who says he’s collected more than $10 billion in damages for his clients, Buzbee made a splashy entrance into the deluge of civil litigation against Combs last September. At a press conference streamed online, he announced he had more than 120 clients with credible claims against Combs. He said the plaintiffs were being subjected to a “stringent” vetting process. He has since filed more than two dozen lawsuits against Combs, the Bad Boy Records founder who’s currently in federal custody fighting criminal charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking.
Combs has vehemently denied all accusations of sexual assault and criminal conduct. He’s due in court Friday to enter a plea to federal prosecutors’ recently revised indictment.
From Rolling Stone US.