Jay-Z Explains Why He Refused to Settle Sexual Assault Lawsuit
In a new GQ interview, Jay-Z said he was heartbroken and angry after a woman alleged in a since-dismissed 2024 civil lawsuit that he and fellow rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs had raped her when she was 13 years old.
“It was hard. Really hard… Like I was really heartbroken by everything that happened,” the music mogul told GQ in an article published Tuesday.
Referring to the lawsuit, he said, “that shit took a lot out of me. I was angry. I haven’t been this angry in a long time, uncontrollable anger.”
“You don’t put that on someone; it’s something you better be super sure about,” he said. “It used to be like that. You had to be very sure before you put that kind of thing on a person. Especially a person like me.”
In late 2024, a woman identified only as Jane Doe alleged that Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, and Combs had raped her in New York City after the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards while an anonymous female celebrity looked on.
Jay-Z denied the woman’s allegations and she withdrew her lawsuit due to prejudice, meaning she cannot file it again, in February 2025.
“Even when we were doing the worst things, we had those kinds of rules,” Jay-Z told GQ. “There was a line: neither women nor children. You hear those sayings, but those are the things I picked up from the street. We live and die by it. So it’s strict for me, like it means a lot to me.”
“I took it very seriously… because, first of all, it’s not true,” he said of the allegation. “And the truth, at the end of the day, still reigns supreme.”
The Roc Nation mogul filed a lawsuit in March 2025 against Doe and his attorney Tony Buzbee, accusing them of conspiring to make false and defamatory statements.
Buzbee has represented more than a hundred people who accuse Combs of sexual and other inappropriate conduct, which Combs denied, but Doe’s was the only lawsuit that mentioned Jay-Z. Combs was sentenced last year to just over four years in prison following a federal criminal trial.
Telling GQ that he would rather “die” than settle a lawsuit that made such serious allegations, Jay-Z explained: “[Settling] “It’s not in my DNA.”
“First of all, I had to tell my wife [Beyoncé]” he said. “Let’s go back. I know the weight this will bring to our family. I can’t do it. “I would die.”
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When asked how he had emotionally dealt with the fallout from the allegations, Jay-Z responded, “I’m still dealing with it. Because it’s a horrible thing for someone to do. It was like he was released on the night of my daughter’s birth.” [movie] premiere.”
He appreciated the support of the people closest to him.
“I wasn’t naive. I called, again, after my family, my partners. They told me: ‘What do you need help with? Don’t even worry.’ In a phone call. Not even a: ‘I have to go to the board of directors with this.’ It was like a testament because people know me. Like: ‘I know who you are and that’s impossible.’
“I’ve built this circle that’s really safe for me, of people who really love me, who don’t use me, and who really have my best interests at heart. So I was able to have that at the most crucial time for me,” she told GQ.
Noting that “there are blessings and curses” in what he had experienced, Jay-Z said the accusations helped him “see how people felt about me, especially people close to me.”
“People run” when “that kind of stuff happens,” the record executive said, adding, “they don’t care what happened.”