MANHATTAN (CN) — The woman who accused Brooklyn hip-hop superstar Jay-Z and entertainment mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs of raping her at an awards show when she was a 13-year-old girl opted to dismiss her civil lawsuit Friday, according to a filing in Manhattan federal court.
The voluntary dismissal was done “with prejudice,” and cannot be filed again.
The anonymous accuser, identified as Jane Doe, said the A-listers raped her after she was driven to a private afterparty following the MTV Video Music Awards in September 2000 when she was a minor.
The MTV Video Music Awards, also known as the VMAS, were held at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan that year. At the time, Combs was dating singer Jennifer Lopez, then-comprising one of Hollywood’s hottest A-list couples.
In the complaint, Doe says Combs and Jay-Z, whose full name is Shawn Carter, took turns assaulting her while another celebrity stood by. She added that she was initially invited to the party by a limousine driver outside the venue who told her that Combs liked younger girls.
She is represented by attorneys Tony Buzbee and Antigone Curis, who filed the voluntary dismissal Friday night. Buzbee also represents over 100 other plaintiffs in civil suits accusing Combs of sexual assault. Buzzbee and Curis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Roc Nation, the entertainment company owned by Carter, issued a statement signed by the hip-hop artist.
“The frivolous, fictitious and appalling allegations have been dismissed. This civil suit was without merit and never going anywhere,” Carter said in the statement. “The fictional tale they created was laughable, if not for the seriousness of the claims.”
Carter, who is famously married to multi-platform singer and songwriter Beyoncé, added the lawsuit caused trauma for his family.
“The trauma that my wife, children, loved ones and I have endured can never be dismissed,” Carter said.
Doe brought her suit under the New York City Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act during a two-year window that suspends legal deadlines and allows sexual assault victims to sue over abuse that might otherwise be too old to be actionable.
The lawsuit was originally filed against Combs in October as one of dozens of anonymous complaints by 100 plaintiffs in civil sexual assault lawsuits.
Since the lawsuit was filed, both Carter and Combs have both vehemently denied the accusations.
After Carter was added to the lawsuit, he denied knowing who the anonymous accuser was and said he had “no known contact” with Doe in the two decades since.
Combs was also criminally charged in September 2024 by federal prosecutors in New York with racketeering, sex trafficking and other offenses. He was arrested in a Manhattan hotel lobby six months after federal investigators searched his luxury homes in Los Angeles and Miami. He has been in federal pretrial detention since, and is currently being held without bail at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center.