Music mogul Jay-Z filed a lawsuit against Texas attorney Tony Buzbee, accusing him of defamation, civil extortion and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
This lawsuit immediately follows the dismissal of the case of Jane Doe who filed a civil suit against Jay, accusing him and Sean “Diddy” Combs of teaming up to sexually assault her. She said she was just 13 in 2000 when she was drugged and raped by the two entertainment impresarios during an MTV Video Music Awards afterparty in New York.
The Jane Doe lawsuit was dismissed on Valentine’s Day
Now that his name was cleared on Feb. 14, Jay-Z vows to exact legal revenge on Buzbee for allegedly using the unnamed woman to assassinate his character and trying to blackmail him into giving up his wealth to squash the lawsuit.
“The frivolous, fictitious, and appalling allegations have been dismissed,” Jay-Z wrote in a statement. “The lawsuit was without merit and never going anywhere.”
Jay-Z says Tony Buzbee tried to inflict maximum damage to his reputation
According to People magazine, Jay-Z said Buzbee calculatedly and premeditatedly filed the Jane Doe lawsuit on Oct. 20, 2024, hours before his daughter Blue Ivy’s Mufasa: The Lion King premiere which caused him unimaginable “mental anguish” and humiliation that can’t be calculated monetarily.
“I felt that Mr. Buzbee was placing a gun to my head — that I either bow to his demands or endure personal and financial ruin,” he declared in the legal documents obtained by People.
The Roc Nation founder also asserts that he lost more than $20 million in business ventures as companies pulled back from him.
The lawsuit by Jane Doe was among the class action filing by more than 120 of Buzbee’s clients who are seeking legal redress against Diddy for a plethora of crimes related to sex trafficking, violence and forced prostitution. Diddy remains in federal legal custody in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., awaiting a trial in May.
Jane Doe’s account crumbles under media scrutiny
The suit was voluntarily dismissed with prejudice, meaning that she could never file the suit again. It came not long after NBC News uncovered multiple inconsistencies in Jane Doe’s account, including the assertion that her father picked her up after the so-called assault. The father cannot recall that ever happening.
Jane Doe also said she had spoken to singer Benji Madden at the afterparty. But Madden said that would have been impossible because he was on tour in the Midwest with his band Good Charlotte at the time and did not attend the MTV Video Music Awards in 2000, the year she claimed she was assaulted.
