Tony Buzbee Calls Jane Doe’s Jay-Z Recantation “Bought-And-Paid-For”

Tony Buzbee is calling Jane Doe’s recantation a “bought-and-paid-for Declaration,” claiming Jay-Z obtained it by dropping her from his lawsuit.

Buzbee’s lawyer made the charge in a letter to Judge Dale Ho. He says Jay-Z attached Doe’s new sworn statement to a notice dismissing his claims against her, though he did not need the statement to drop her from the case.

The lawyer is asking Judge Ho to remove it from the court record.

The letter frames Jay-Z’s decision to dismiss Doe as the “exchange” behind the phrase “bought-and-paid-for.”

Doe says in her declaration that Jay-Z and his representatives gave her no money and promised her none for making it. Those claims conflict, and the judge has not resolved them.

The dispute began in October 2024, when Doe sued Sean “Diddy” Combs over an alleged assault in 2000.

Her complaint referred to a second alleged attacker as “Celebrity A.” She said she was 13 when she went to a party after the MTV Video Music Awards, accepted a drink that made her feel ill and was raped. She claimed she escaped and called her father to pick her up.

Buzbee sent Jay-Z’s lawyers a demand letter in November 2024, before naming him in court. On December 8, her lawyers amended the complaint to identify Jay-Z, whose legal name is Shawn Carter, as Celebrity A.

The new filing accused him and Combs of raping Doe while another celebrity watched. Both men denied the allegation.

Jay-Z had already sued Buzbee in California by the time his name appeared in Doe’s case. He accused the attorney of trying to force a private settlement through the threat of a public sexual assault claim. After Doe named him, Jay-Z rejected the allegation outright.

“My lawyer received a blackmail attempt, called a demand letter, from a ‘lawyer’ named Tony Buzbee,” Jay-Z said at the time. He argued that Buzbee expected him to pay to avoid the harm such an accusation would cause his family and career.

Buzbee denied trying to extort him and maintained that Doe stood by her account.

Questions about that account soon reached the public. In an NBC News interview, Doe acknowledged errors in parts of her story but maintained that the assault had occurred.

Her father told the outlet he did not recall driving to New York to collect her after the alleged attack. Jay-Z’s lawyers cited the gaps as they sought to have the case thrown out.

Doe instead withdrew her lawsuit against Jay-Z and Combs on February 14, 2025. She dismissed it with prejudice, which barred her from filing the same claim again. The brief dismissal notice gave no public explanation for her decision.

Jay-Z called the result a victory. He then sued Doe, Buzbee and attorney David Fortney, accusing them of pursuing allegations they knew were false. His case alleged damage to his reputation and business, including more than $20 million in lost deals. Buzbee rejected the claims and accused Jay-Z’s side of pressuring Doe.

The fight later split across courts. In California, an appeals court upheld the dismissal of Jay-Z’s claims against Buzbee on September 9. That ruling addressed whether the lawyer’s demand letters and statements could support Jay-Z’s extortion claims; it did not decide whether Doe’s original accusation was true.

Jay-Z’s separate case against Buzbee and Fortney remains before Ho in New York.

Doe’s explanation for withdrawing her suit has also changed. In sworn statements made after the February 2025 dismissal, she stood by her allegation and said fear of retaliation had played a role in her decision.

Buzbee’s new letter points to those statements, as well as declarations she signed in November and December 2024, when arguing that her latest account cannot simply replace the earlier ones.

Her September 24 declaration tells a different story. Doe says she began doubting her claims against Jay-Z in January 2025. She also began to question whether she had attended a celebrity party or whether Combs was involved in an attack on her.

“I told him I did not want to continue with the case in any way,” Doe says of a call she believes took place with Fortney in late January. She says Fortney came to her Alabama home on February 13 and told her the firm would dismiss the lawsuit.

According to Doe, she signed the document he gave her while sitting in his car, without receiving a copy or an explanation of why the case was ending.

Doe now says her accusation against Jay-Z was false.

“Shawn ‘Jay-Z’ Carter never raped me. I have never met or spoken to Mr. Carter,” she states. Her new lawyer says she still maintains that she was sexually assaulted, but was mistaken when she identified Jay-Z.

The declaration also says Doe first responded to a Facebook advertisement seeking people with claims against Combs. She says the original suit was filed without her knowledge, and she disputes how much her former lawyers did to check her account.

AllHipHop previously reported that Buzbee gave her $1,000 in cash and Fortney gave her $200 during a Houston trip the firm arranged in December 2024.

On September 24, Jay-Z dropped Doe from his lawsuit without prejudice and filed her new declaration with the dismissal notice. His lawyers said removing her would narrow the issues in the continuing case against Buzbee and the other defendants.

Buzbee’s September 25 letter asks Judge Ho to strike that declaration or, if the judge considers it, also review Doe’s earlier sworn statements backing her accusation.