Jay-Z has asked a California appeals court to rehear its ruling that ended his extortion and defamation lawsuit against attorney Tony Buzbee, after the woman who accused Jay-Z of rape recanted in a sworn declaration, saying she never met him and that her claims were false.
The appeals court denied the rehearing bid on October 1 — but left a narrow door open. Rather than ordering reconsideration, the panel ruled that the Los Angeles County Superior Court may order discovery and revisit its earlier ruling "based on any new evidence, should the court deem it appropriate." Jay-Z's attorney, Jeremy Rosen, said the team intends "to proceed with that application as soon as jurisdiction is returned to the Superior Court," seeking the discovery and reconsideration the ruling just cleared a path for. Nothing is reinstated yet: the Superior Court must first regain jurisdiction, then rule on whatever motion Jay-Z's team files.
The new evidence is the recantation itself. The anonymous woman whose 2024 lawsuit started the entire saga — she claimed she was drugged and raped by Jay-Z, whose legal name is Shawn Carter, and Sean "Diddy" Combs at an afterparty for the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards when she was 13 — has now sworn that she lied. In her declaration, she states she never met Jay-Z and that he never engaged in any inappropriate conduct toward her, and that the allegations in her original lawsuit were false. She dismissed that suit in February 2025 with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled.
Jay-Z has been on the offensive ever since the original case collapsed. He filed a defamation and malicious prosecution suit against Buzbee in New York federal court, arguing the attorney chased claims he knew were baseless in pursuit of a settlement payout, and pursued extortion claims in California. His Texas suits against Buzbee were dismissed for lack of jurisdiction; his Alabama suit was transferred to New York, where motions to dismiss are pending. Meanwhile, Buzbee's own exposure is growing: a federal judge in Galveston has refused to dismiss a $25 million defamation suit against him brought by Marcy Croft, the attorney who represents Jay-Z's Roc Nation.
A recantation does not erase the fact that the claim was made and reported — but under defamation law, it can be the difference between a case with nothing left to argue and one with a real shot at restarting. Whether the Superior Court walks through the door the appeals court left ajar is now the central question in Jay-Z's long campaign against the lawyer who sued him.