Jay-Z broke his silence.
The hip‑hop mogul, whose real name is Shawn Carter, spoke out for the first time about the Dec. 2024 sexual assault lawsuit brought against him by an anonymous accuser, which was dismissed two months later.
He reflected on the emotional toll of the ordeal, explaining why he was left “heartbroken” and “angry,” and why he refused to take a settlement.
Looking back at the period when he and Sean “Diddy” Combs were named in the civil lawsuit, the 56-year-old Carter described the impact in stark terms.
“That whole [lawsuit thing], that s—t took a lot out of me. I was angry,” Carter told GQ in an interview published March 24. “I haven’t been that angry in a long time — uncontrollable anger. You don’t put that on someone. That’s a thing that you better be super sure…”
He said the experience triggered a level of misery he had not felt in years.
“It was hard. Really hard. I was heartbroken,” Carter continued to the outlet. “Like I was really heartbroken by everything that occurred. We’re in a space now where it’s almost like consequence is not thought about enough. Because everything is so instant, you know what I’m saying?”
Despite the emotional toll, Carter said he remained confident the case would fall apart.
“I took that really hard. I knew that we were going to walk through that because, first of all, it’s not true. And the truth, at the end of the day, still reigns supreme.”
The lawsuit was withdrawn after NBC News uncovered multiple inconsistencies in the accuser’s account, including her father saying he did not recall picking her up the night of the alleged incident and a musician she claimed to have spoken with confirming he was not in New York at the time. Images from that evening also placed Carter and Combs at a different location than the one she described.
Carter, who refused to settle, responded forcefully at the time, calling the claims “idiotic” and “heinous in nature.”
His attorney, Alex Spiro, said the complaint lacked proper vetting and emphasized that Carter “isn’t going to get shaken down.”
After the civil suit was dismissed with prejudice, Carter filed a defamation lawsuit against the accuser and her attorneys, alleging they were “soullessly motivated by greed” and had caused significant harm to his personal and professional reputation.
The filing claimed the accuser admitted Carter did not assault her, an assertion she later reversed in a separate legal document, saying she still stood by her allegations overall.
Carter said in March 2025 that the ordeal was traumatic not only for him but for his family.
“I would not wish this experience on anyone,” he said after the dismissal. “The trauma that my wife, my children, my loved ones and I have endured can never be dismissed.”