The woman who accused both Jay-Z and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs of raping her at 13 years old has broken her silence. Speaking publicly for the first time to NBC News, the 38-year-old maintained that both rappers assaulted her, though she admits that her story has some inconsistencies.
In a sit-down interview, the woman, who asked to remain anonymous, told NBC’s Chloe Melas, “I’ve been quiet long enough about what I’ve been through…It’s a chapter of my life I’d like to close.” The woman went on to describe the assault that she claims occurred at a Video Music Awards afterparty in 2000. In her recollection, a friend drove her from Rochester, New York to Manhattan, where she joined onlookers crowded outside of Radio City Music Hall during the award show. The woman claims she spoke with a limo driver who worked for Combs and later drove her to the afterparty where the assault occurred. After managing to escape, she says she called her father to pick her up from a nearby gas station.
But while fact-checking her story, NBC News found several inconsistencies. The woman’s father, for example, does not recall picking her up that evening. The woman also claims to have spoken to musician Benji Madden during the party, but a representative for Madden confirmed that he was on tour in the Midwest during the 2000 VMAs. Several photos from that evening also show Combs and Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, at the Lotus Nightclub in New York City, a venue that does not match the woman’s description of the house in which the alleged assault occurred.
These discrepancies are not enough to conclude that the allegations are false, though they have raised questions about the case’s credibility. The woman told NBC News that she made “some mistakes” in her retelling of the evening, but insists that the assaults happened. Her lawyer, Tony Buzbee, also assured NBC News that his team has “interrogated her intensely” and will “continue to vet her claims and collect corroborating data to the extent it exists.”
Carter vehemently denied the allegations in a statement posted to X last week and called Buzbee “deplorable.” Carter’s attorney, Alex Spiro, echoed similar sentiments to NBC News. “It is stunning that a lawyer would not only file such a serious complaint without proper vetting, but would make things worse by further peddling this false story in the press,” he said. Spiro also said that Carter’s attorneys will file a motion to have the case dismissed.
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