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Jay-Z has filed a defamation suit against three people, including a woman who accused him of sexual assault. Variety reported that he has filed the case against attorneys Tony Buzbee and David Fortney and an unidentified woman over a dropped suit that alleged sexual assault.

The suit was filed in Alabama, and it came a few weeks after the woman dropped her case against Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, and popular rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs.

The woman originally filed a case against the hip hop stars in US federal court in December, alleging that Jay-Z and Combs raped her at a 2000 party when she was 13 years old. Buzbee, who has filed numerous lawsuits against Combs, initially filed the woman’s lawsuit in October 2024 and refiled it two months later, adding Jay-Z as a defendant.

In his lawsuit, Jay-Z claims that the original rape allegations were deliberately “false” and “malicious,” asserting that they were “strategically and tactically calculated and time to inflict maximum pain and suffering on Mr Carter.”

The suit accused both men of raping the alleged victim in 2000 after taking her to an MTV Video Music Awards afterparty. Jay-Z publicly denied the allegations, and the case was dismissed without explanation on February 14.

According to Variety, Jay-Z’s lawyers describe the unnamed woman as appearing to suffer from personal and financial hardship who hired Buzbee “to obtain a payday.” Before adding his name to the suit, Buzbee sent the musician an “extortionate” demand letter and anonymous lawsuit, both of which he rebuffed, and then proceeded to name him publicly. After the suit was refiled, the woman gave an interview on NBC News, which Jay-Z’s lawyers say was full of lies.

His lawyers allege that the woman “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.”

The suit notes that he “does not commence this action lightly” and that he doesn’t want to expose the identity of the woman, identified as Jane Doe in the court documents, despite everything that has transpired. But, the suit continues, he does want to “hold Doe accountable for her wilful defamation per se and her malicious prosecution of knowingly false allegations.”

In a statement to Variety, Buzbee alleged that the case has “no legal merit” and claimed Jay-Z’s representatives 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.”