The Jane Doe who accused Jay-Z of sexual assault in a December 2024 lawsuit has fully recanted her allegations, declaring in a new court filing that she never met the rapper and that her claims were false.

"Shawn 'Jay-Z' Carter never raped me. I have never met or spoken to Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter never engaged in any inappropriate conduct toward me whatsoever," the woman wrote in a 12-page declaration filed Thursday in Manhattan federal court and obtained by Rolling Stone.

"There is no truth to any of my claims against Mr. Carter," she continued under penalty of perjury. "I understand my false accusations have caused Mr. Carter immense pain, suffering, and damage that can never be fully undone."

The declaration arrived alongside notice that Carter is voluntarily dismissing the woman as a defendant in his ongoing malicious-prosecution lawsuit against prominent lawyer Tony Buzbee and his Texas-based firm. The Jane Doe stated she was not promised and did not receive any compensation for the declaration.

"Our client maintains that she was a victim of sexual assault, but she was entirely mistaken in her allegations identifying Mr. Carter, and those allegations were false," James Blair Newman, Jr., the woman's new lawyer in the malicious prosecution case, said in a statement. "Mr. Carter did not rape her, sexually assault her, engage in any inappropriate conduct towards her, and she has never met him. She sincerely and unconditionally apologizes to Mr. Carter and his family."

In the declaration, the woman said she had disclosed certain "mental health conditions" to her legal team before they publicly named the Grammy-winning rapper in December 2024.

The recantation comes more than a year after Carter first sued the woman and her lawyers in federal court, accusing them of conspiring to pressure him into a secret financial settlement "under the threat of devastating harm to his reputation."

The underlying lawsuit was first filed in October 2024 against Sean "Diddy" Combs, alleging he raped the woman when she was 13 and that an unidentified "male celebrity" also assaulted her. Carter claims Buzbee sent him an "extortionate demand letter" in November 2024 and, after he refused to pay, amended the suit in December 2024 to name him as the celebrity defendant.

Carter denied the allegation when it became public and revealed he had already sued Buzbee for extortion in California state court in November 2024 under a John Doe pseudonym. In a sworn declaration, he described the demand letter as an "existential threat."

"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," Carter wrote. "His actions caused me mental anguish about the ticking time bomb and what it would do to me, my family, and my hard-earned reputation."

The Jane Doe voluntarily dismissed her entire complaint against Carter and Combs in early 2025, admitting inconsistencies in her story. A judge later dismissed Carter's California extortion lawsuit, and an appeals court upheld that dismissal earlier this month. Associate Justice Anne Richardson, writing for a unanimous panel of California's Second Appellate District, found that Buzbee's demand letter was protected because it was sent in anticipation of filing a lawsuit.

"The record contains no evidence Buzbee accused Carter of raping Jane Doe while knowing those statements to be false or with reckless disregard as to whether they were true," Richardson wrote.

The ruling leaves Carter's malicious-prosecution lawsuit in New York as his remaining case against Buzbee and his firm. Carter alleges they should have known before filing that the woman's claims "were contradicted by publicly available information, internally inconsistent, and unsupported by any credible story or investigation."

Reached by email late Thursday, Buzbee said he had not seen the new declaration. "We have multiple lawyers (at least four) who dealt with Ms. Doe long before she met me. She gave the exact same story to each. If for some reason now she is claiming she lied to us and the court, that's new information," he wrote. He previously told Rolling Stone that "sending a basic demand letter prior to filing suit is not and will never be 'extortion.'"

In her declaration, the woman traced her legal claim to a Facebook ad in late September or early October 2024 seeking people with sexual assault claims against Combs. "The ad triggered memories of being raped when I was 13 years old," she wrote. She said her initial October 2024 lawsuit was filed without her knowledge and without her lawyers "conducting any independent investigation, background inquiry, or due diligence."

She also alleged her lawyers gave her $1,200 in cash when she traveled to Houston in December 2024 for an interview with NBC News, and that they asked her to take a polygraph test afterward due to discrepancies in her story. She said she never received the results. Buzbee said he believed she received "some petty cash" for meals and travel, and that "each [filing] was explained in detail to Ms. Doe, to include the original demand letter."

"In January 2025, I began to doubt my claims against Mr. Carter. I also began doubting that I ever went to a party with celebrities," the woman wrote, adding that after she voiced those doubts, her lawyers told her they were dismissing her lawsuit.

In a Sept. 1 motion to dismiss Carter's malicious-prosecution claims, Buzbee and his co-counsel called the suit "improper" and "abusive," arguing that filing a civil complaint on behalf of a Jane Doe alleging sexual assault did not amount to misconduct. "This case is itself a malicious prosecution," they argued.

Combs' lawyers separately denied the woman's allegations, saying he "never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone — man or woman, adult or minor." Buzbee continues to represent other plaintiffs pursuing civil claims against Combs, while the New York malicious-prosecution case — now without the Jane Doe as a defendant — remains the central legal battleground between Carter and the Texas attorney.