Jay-Z is speaking out after a woman accused him in a civil lawsuit of raping her when she was 13, along with Sean “Diddy” Combs.
On Dec. 8, the accuser, who is named anonymously as “Jane Doe,” refilled a sexual assault lawsuit she had originally filed against Combs in October, adding Jay-Z as another defendant. According to NBC News, the new court documents say that in 2000, when she was 13, the two men raped her at a house party after the MTV Video Music Awards in New York.
Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, released a statement to E! News hours after the lawsuit was refiled, responding to the lawyer who filed it, Tony Buzbee.
“These allegations are so terrible that I urge you to file a criminal complaint, not a civil one!!” he said in a statement to NBC News. “Anyone who would commit such a crime against a minor should be locked away, don’t you agree? These alleged victims would deserve real justice if that were the case.”
Carter mentioned the “idiotic claims you have levied against me” and said that before refiling the lawsuit, Buzbee had contacted his lawyer to try to reach a settlement.
“What he had calculated,” Carter said in the statement, “was that the nature of these allegations and the public attention would make me want to settle.”
In a statement to E! News, Buzbee said his firm did send Carter’s attorney “a demand letter on behalf of an alleged victim.” He added that the person “never demanded a penny from him. Instead, she only sought a confidential mediation.”
Buzbee added, “As for the allegations in the complaint, we will let the filing speak for itself and will fight the facts in court, not in the media.”
Carter, who has a daughter, Blue Ivy, 12, and twins Rumi and Sir, 6, with his wife Beyoncé, said his “only heartbreak” is for his family.
“My wife and I will have to sit our children down, one of whom is at the age where her friends will surely see the press and ask questions about the nature of these claims,” he said, “and explain the cruelty and greed of people.”
Carter said, “I mourn yet another loss of innocence. Children should not have to endure such things at their young age.”
He then thought about his own childhood. “I’m a young man who made it out of the projects of Brooklyn. We don’t play these types of games. We have very strict codes and honor,” he said, adding that “we protect children.”
The lawsuit is one of several sexual abuse civil suits filed against Combs in recent months and the first to name him and another celebrity as defendants. Combs is currently in jail, awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges, for which he has pleaded not guilty. He has denied any wrongdoing in all the cases.
Combs’ lawyers had previously said that the “barrage of filings” were attempts to “garner publicity.”
“Mr. Combs and his legal team have full confidence in the facts, their legal defenses, and the integrity of the judicial process,” his lawyers told E! News in October. “In court, the truth will prevail: that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted anyone—adult or minor, man or woman.”
