Jay-Z recently sat for a GQ interview to commemorate 30 years of his debut album Reasonable Doubt.
During the interview, the rapper talked about his 2024 sexual assault lawsuit, including standing up to the allegations, how it impacted his family, and how he’s moving forward.
The Lawsuit
The lawsuit claimed that Jay-Z and Sean “Diddy” Combs drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl at a party after the MTV music awards in 2000.
Both denied all allegations after the lawsuit was filed in late 2024.
Jay-Z even called them a “blackmail attempt” with his attorney, Alex Spiro, announcing the claims as “provably, demonstrably false.”
The case was voluntarily dismissed in February 2025.
Jay-Z Breaks Silence
Jay-Z shared with GQ, “It was hard. Really hard. I was heartbroken. 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?”
He added, “That whole lawsuit thing, that s*** took a lot out of me. I was angry. 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 [about]. It used to be like that. You had to be super sure before you put those kind of things on a person.”
Not Choosing to Settle
During the conversation, Jay-Z also shared why he chose to fight the lawsuit rather than settling with the Jane Doe accuser.
“I can’t take a settlement – it ain’t in my DNA. First of all, first I had to tell my wife. Let’s back up. … the weight that this is going to bring on our family. I can’t do it. I would die.”
He continued, “If I settled … it would’ve been cheaper? Yes. Cheaper, quicker, move on with your life. … knew what was coming. I wasn’t naive. I called – again, after my family – my partners. They were like, ‘What do you need to help? Don’t even worry.’ In a phone call. Not even a: ‘I got to go to the board with this.’ It was like a testament because people know me.”
Allegations Not Taken Lightly
Along with sharing his experience with the 2024 allegations, Jay-Z also spoke about how allegations of rape and pedophilia are not something to take lightly, “especially against a person like [him].”
When asked what he meant by that, Jay-Z said, “Even when we were doing the worst things, we had those kind of rules. There was a line: no women, no kids. You hear those sayings, but those are the things that I took from the street. We lived and died by that. So it’s strict for me, like it meant a lot to me.”
He added, “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.”