A woman who accused Jay-Z of sexual assault is now seeking to have the rapper’s defamation countersuit against her dismissed. The woman, referred to as Jane Doe, alleged that Jay-Z (Shawn ‘Jay-Z’ Carter) and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs sexually assaulted her in 2000 at an MTV Video Music Awards afterparty when she was just 13 years old.
In a motion filed on April 22, 2025, Doe asked a judge to dismiss the countersuit that Jay-Z filed against her. Jay-Z had sued Doe and her attorneys—Tony Buzbee and David Fortney—in March, accusing them of defamation, civil conspiracy, and abuse of process. The lawsuit claims that Doe’s accusations against him were false and part of an attempt to harm his reputation and extort money from him.
Doe’s legal team argued that Jay-Z’s defamation claim should be dismissed because it doesn’t meet the standards required under California law. According to court documents, they contended that Jay-Z has failed to provide sufficient evidence to support the claim of abuse of process. Additionally, they argued that a civil conspiracy charge is not applicable in this case, as conspiracy requires the involvement of at least one other party, and Doe, on her own, cannot be accused of conspiracy.
This legal back-and-forth follows the events of December 2024, when Doe filed a lawsuit accusing both Jay-Z and Diddy of sexually assaulting her at the 2000 MTV VMAs afterparty. However, that lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed by her attorneys in February 2025.
In his countersuit, Jay-Z claimed the lawsuit had caused significant harm to his personal and professional life, including emotional distress, damage to his reputation, and business losses reportedly totaling over $20 million. As of now, neither party has publicly commented on the recent motion, but both continue to strongly dispute the validity and intent behind the original allegations.
