Days after Jay-Z’s rape accuser recanted her allegations, the superstar rapper is now asking a California appeals court to reverse its own recent decision and revive his extortion lawsuit against the attorneys who filed the shocking case.
In a petition filed Thursday (Sept. 24) and obtained by Billboard, lawyers for the artist (Shawn Carter) asked for a rare rehearing of their case against Tony Buzbee, the Texas lawyer who represented Jay-Z’s unnamed accuser in her quickly-dropped 2024 lawsuit.
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An appeals court dismissed Jay’s case earlier this month, but did so before the Jane Doe’s headline-grabbing court filing last week, in which she admitted that her allegations were false and claimed Buzbee and her other lawyers had conducted little due diligence.
In the new petition, Jay-Z’s attorneys say that the accuser’s “extraordinary” recantation is enough for the appellate court to reconsider its recent ruling because it shows that Buzbee’s lawsuit against the star was “built on lies.”
“Justice requires that this court consider this explosive new evidence which was procured today and to permit Carter’s meritorious claims to proceed,” the star’s lawyers write. “These sworn statements establish good cause to reverse and, at minimum, remand for limited discovery.”
Buzbee’s lawsuit, filed in December 2024, claimed that Jay-Z and Sean “Diddy” Combs had drugged and assaulted a teen girl in 2000 during an after-party following the MTV Video Music Awards. Jay-Z immediately called the scandalous accusations a “blackmail attempt” and fought back by suing Buzbee for extortion and defamation.
But in a ruling earlier this month, California’s Second Appellate District rejected that case by ruling there was no evidence that Buzbee filed the rape claims against Jay-Z knowing they were false. The court also said that threat letters sent ahead of lawsuits are a normal part of litigation and should not be deemed extortion.
The new petition asks the appeals court to reconsider that ruling, citing last week’s big reversal from the Jane Doe. In a filing in a separate federal lawsuit Jay-Z filed against Buzbee, the woman admitted that her accusations were not true, that she’d had mental health issues, and that she’d in fact “never met or spoken” to the star.
In the petition, Jay-Z’s lawyers argue that the new declaration shows that he is entitled to discovery, the legal process of gathering evidence in a civil lawsuit.
“Our system of justice must balance the freedom for sexual assault victims to come forward with the ability for a wrongfully accused, innocent person to gather the evidence to exonerate themself and hold attorneys who exploit the justice system accountable for their wrongdoing,” his lawyers write.
Buzbee’s attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment. In a previous statement to Billboard, he called the extortion lawsuit “total bulls–t.” And in court filings Friday (Sept. 25), his attorneys also blasted the recantation, calling his former client an “unreliable” witness and suggesting Jay-Z paid her to repudiate her allegations.
Even if the California appeals court declines to rehear Jay-Z’s extortion case, he will continue litigating his federal case, in which he accuses Buzbee and other lawyers of malicious prosecution and civil conspiracy. He’s dropped Doe from that case, but is moving ahead with his claims against her former attorneys.