A lawsuit now accuses rapper and entrepreneur Jay-Z of raping a 13-year-old girl alongside Sean “Diddy” Combs in 2000.
The anonymous accuser says the sexual assault happened as she was driven to a party following the MTV Video Music Awards that year, according to NBC News.
The lawsuit was originally filed in federal court in October, listing only Combs as the defendant. It was refiled on Sunday to include Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter.
The suit was filed by Texas attorney Tony Buzbee, who has filed several lawsuits accusing Combs of sexual assault. This is the first to name another high-profile celebrity.
Combs has denied all the allegations against him, except the one caught on video showing him kicking and beating his then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in a hotel hallway in 2016. In addition to multiple civil lawsuits, he’s been charged in federal court with three criminal counts and is being held without bond in Manhattan.
Carter provided a statement to NBC calling Buzbee a “fraud.”
“My lawyer received a blackmail attempt, called a demand letter, from a ‘lawyer’ named Tony Buzbee,” he said in the statement. “What he had calculated was the nature of these allegations and the public scrutiny would make me want to settle.
“No sir, it had the opposite effect! It made me want to expose you for the fraud you are in a VERY public fashion. So no, I will not give you ONE RED PENNY!!”
Carter called the allegations in the lawsuit “so heinous in nature that I implore you to file a criminal complaint, not a civil one!”
“Whomever would commit such a crime against a minor should be locked away, would you not agree?” he said.
According to the lawsuit, the plaintiff, styled “Jane Doe,” arrived outside Radio City Music Hall the night of the award ceremony and talked to several limousine drivers trying to get into the show or to an after party. One them allegedly told her he worked for Combs and agreed to take her to a party after the show.
Once there, she said she was given a drink that made her feel “woozy, lightheaded and felt she needed to lie down,” so she went to a room to rest. Carter and Combs and an unnamed female celebrity came into the room, the suit says, and first Carter and then Combs raped her.
After the alleged assault, she said, she grabbed her clothes, fled to a nearby gas station, and called her father.
She is seeking unspecified damages.
Carter, who is married to superstar Beyonce Knowles, said in his statement that his “only heartbreak is for my family.”
“My wife and I will have to sit our children down, one of whom is at the age where her friends will surely see the press and ask questions about the nature of these claims, and explain the cruelty and greed of people,” he said. “I mourn yet another loss of innocence.”
The Carters have three children — Blue Ivy, 12, and 7-year-old twins Rumi and Sir.
