Jay-Z is doubling down, adding new allegations to the malicious prosecution and defamation lawsuit he filed against his Jane Doe rape accuser and her lawyers in Alabama.
In an amended complaint filed late Monday in Mobile, the Roc Nation founder alleges his accuser “has not stopped” making statements about him even though she agreed in February to voluntarily dismiss the sexual assault lawsuit that first identified him by name last year. In that revised version of her complaint, filed Dec. 8, Doe publicly accused Jay-Z of raping her alongside Sean Combs at a MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) afterparty when she was 13 years old.
In his new filing, Jay-Z claims that as recently as April 11, the Jane Doe posted a lip-synched video on TikTok that stated, “You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to get an apology video out of me, I stand on what I said, fuck you.”
“By refusing to apologize, and continuing to ‘stand on what [she] said,’ despite all the evidence and, indeed, her own admissions to the contrary, Doe continues to display a shocking and reckless disregard for the truth that is both intentional and malicious,” Jay-Z’s amended complaint, obtained by Rolling Stone, states. “Doe never had any reasonable grounds to support any truth in her statements and acted with reckless disregard for the truth,” the filing continues to allege. “In other words, she lied.”
Jay-Z, born Shawn Carter, filed the new complaint after the Jane Doe and her high-profile lawyer Tony Buzbee challenged his initial lawsuit with arguments he failed to show the “special injury” needed to pursue his claims. They said Carter’s prior allegation that Roc Nation lost out on an unspecified $20 million payday was not sufficient. (Buzbee and Doe also challenged the Alabama lawsuit by arguing Doe’s claims were protected under the privilege extended to lawsuits filed in good faith.)
In his amended lawsuit, Carter claims the $20 million represented the “minimum fee guarantee” of an undisclosed contract, and that the full fee for the deal “would have been many millions of dollars higher had the contract been performed.” Carter also alleges fallout from Doe’s allegations also harmed his ability to pursue new business opportunities.
“As a result of defendants’ filing of the false lawsuit and other false public statements against Mr. Carter, Mr. Carter was denied a $55 million personal credit line,” the amended complaint alleges. It also claims that Roc Nation also was denied a $115 million loan, and that Carter and Roc Nation are “inextricably tied,” so what happens to one, happens to both. (Carter is a 50 percent owner of Roc Nation, the filing states.)
“The case is meritless and should be dismissed,” Buzbee tells Rolling Stone in a statement sent Tuesday. He focused much of his disdain on a new accusation regarding his alleged tampering with Wikipedia pages.
In the amended complaint, Carter claims “Buzbee directed his employees to edit Wikipedia pages to enhance Buzbee’s image and damage Mr. Carter’s and Roc Nation’s reputations,” saying such a move would violate Wikipedia’s rules. “Users with an IP address directly linked to the Buzbee Firm made over 100 positive edits to Buzbee’s Wikipedia page,” the new filing alleges.
“That’s a first for me and is incredibly weak,” Buzbee says of the Wikipedia claim.
Carter first sued the Jane Doe directly in March, four months after he sued Buzbee and Buzbee’s Houston-based law firm in November. In both lawsuits, Carter claimed Buzbee knew, or should have known, that he was peddling alleged lies when he filed the revised Dec. 8 lawsuit accusing Carter of being the male celebrity described in a lawsuit that was first filed against Combs in October. Carter claimed Buzbee sent him a demand letter in early November to squeeze him for money and then added him to the Combs lawsuit because he refused to strike a secret settlement.
The Los Angeles County judge overseeing Carter’s California-based defamation lawsuit has already held numerous hearings on Buzbee’s attempts to dismiss Carter’s claims as frivolous. On Monday, the judge ordered Carter’s camp to submit the hotly contested audio recording that private investigators made of Doe outside her Alabama home on Feb. 21, 2025.
Rolling Stone previously obtained a portion of the alleged doorstep discussion with the Jane Doe. In the snippet, one of the investigators specifically asked if Doe was saying that Carter was at the VMAs afterparty but “didn’t have anything to do with the any sexual acts towards you.”
“Yeah,” Doe replied. The other investigator then asked if it was Buzbee who suggested Carter had a role in the alleged attack following the VMAs. “He was the one that kind of pushed me towards going forward with him, with Jay-Z,” the woman replied. Buzbee later claimed that his client was intimidated by the investigators and that her statements were being twisted by Carter. His lawyer in the California case, Samuel Moniz, told the court last month that Carter’s extortion and defamation claims have no merit.
“This is a well-funded powerful figure who is trying to punish lawyers for doing what lawyers do,” Moniz argued in court on April 8. “Mr. Carter is obviously really mad and determined to use his resources to send a message to lawyers and plaintiffs everywhere. Any fair interpretation of this case is that this is an attack on the right to free speech and the right to free petition. This is an abusive case that deserves to be dismissed.”
The next hearing in the California case is set for June 12.
