HOUSTON – An Alabama woman who accused Jay-Z and Diddy of raping her when she was 13 sat down with NBC News to talk about what she called a “dangerous experience”: the limo ride to the White House, the drink that got her through it. feeling happy, being raped by rappers that destroys his life.
But the woman and her lawyers also admit that there are inconsistencies in her account in response to questions from NBC News.
“I messed up” in the memory of that night, the woman, named as Jane Doe in the lawsuits filed against Jay-Z and Diddy, told NBC News. The woman said she stands by her complaints completely. The inconsistencies in his account of this event — which is said to have happened 24 years ago — do not necessarily mean that what is being said is false.
From left, Jay-Z and Sean “Puffy” Combs, on Nov. 7, 2000.
Among the inconsistencies: The woman said her father raised her after she was raped, but she says she doesn’t remember. The woman also says she spoke to a celebrity at a party where she said she was raped, but the celebrity said she was not in New York at the time. And pictures from that evening show Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, and Sean “Diddy” Combs somewhere other than the one described by the woman, although their whereabouts throughout the evening are unknown.
“This incident didn’t happen,” Carter told NBC News in a statement Friday, “yet she filed a lawsuit and got double coverage in the press,” he added, referring to one of the woman’s attorneys, Tony Buzbee. “Trust Justice is coming. We fight FROM victory, not TO win. This was over before it started. This 1-800 attorney doesn’t know it yet, but soon.
Buzbee says he is continuing to investigate his claims.
“Jane Doe’s case was referred to our firm by someone, who reviewed it before sending it to us,” he told NBC News in an email. “Our client remains adamant that what he said is true, as far as he can remember. We will continue to analyze his claims and gather data that supports them. Because we interviewed him so much, he even agreed to submit to a polygraph. I’ve never had a company I’ve asked to say that.”
“In any case,” he added, “we always do everything we can to investigate each and every action, as we did in this case. This has been very distressing for him, so much so that he suffered from epilepsy and had to go to treatment for mental stress.”
The charges against Carter represent a seismic shift, which could link the rap legend to alleged behavior in the lawsuits filed against Combs, who is in a Brooklyn jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking and felony charges.
Carter’s lawyer, Mr. Alex Spiro, said, “It is amazing that the lawyer does not file such a complaint without being questioned, but makes things worse by continuing to report this false story in the press. We are asking the Court to dismiss this frivolous case today, and will take up the matter of further disciplinary action against Mr. Buzbee and all the lawyers who filed the complaint.”
Combs’ attorneys called the suit “an obscene amount of money grabbing.” Buzbee filed more than 20 lawsuits against Combs.
The lawsuit was first filed in October in the Southern District of New York, listing Combs as a defendant, and was refiled Sunday to name Carter as a co-defendant.
NBC News went to Houston to interview the woman, who declined to be identified, at her attorney’s office earlier this week.
“You always have to fight for what happened to you,” he said about why he is coming forward with the accusations now. “You must always advocate for yourself and be your own voice. You shouldn’t let someone else’s actions affect or drive your life. I just hope that I can give others the strength to come like I did.”
The woman, now 38, told NBC News that she was living in Rochester, New York, in 2000 and that going to the VMAs was “on my 16-year-old bucket list of things to do.” He said he sneaked out the window to avoid his parents.
A friend took him to Radio City Music Hall in New York City, he said in court. People crowded the viewing areas outside the venue, which was decorated for the awards. The crowd went wild when J.Lo arrived. Eminem was made on the street.
He didn’t have a ticket, he said he was in a suit watching one of the shows on the jumbotron outside. He also started talking to limo drivers. “I’m trying to get in to try to stay and go to an after party and get invited to meet some famous people,” he told NBC News.
A limo driver said he worked for Combs and that he “fit what Diddy was looking for,” the suit said, and told him to come back later and he would take him to another party. After about 20 minutes in the limo, he said in a suit, he arrived at “a big white house with a gate made by the U. He said in the suit he signed a document they didn’t read.
Inside, he told NBC News, “I’m talking to Fred Durst, Benji Madden, about his tattoo, because, you know, about his tattoo that ‘The Last Supper,’ because I have a religion, so that’s it. It was something to talk about.”
After receiving a drink from a waiter, he told NBC News: “I started to feel giddy. I tried to start looking for a place to sleep.”
He found an empty room with a bed inside, he said in the suit, and before long, Combs, Carter and a woman entered the room. “You’re ready to party!” Combs said, according to the suit.
Both Combs and Carter raped her, she said. “Jay-Z comes, he touches me down. I start trying to push away. He puts his hand on my mouth, tells me to stop, to cut the dirt, and then he rapes me as if he has overpowered me,” he said.
After that, he said he was in a suit, managed to escape the house and ran to a gas station.
“I was upset, and the person at the gas station saw that I was upset, and allowed me to use the phone. I called my father because he was the only person I trusted at that time. I told him I made a mistake and I wanted to go home,” he told NBC News. “We drove home alone. He didn’t ask me what happened. He didn’t ask me what I did or where I was.”
He told NBC News that he never told anyone about the alleged assault or wrote it in a diary. “Even if someone found out, who would believe me? I mean, it was the words of two famous people against mine,” he said.
The years that followed were difficult, he said. “I was very disappointed. I’m completely out. My grades started to drop,” and he dropped out of school. He was once homeless, he said, and at one point suffered a head injury. She and her father also said she was raped later in life.
Now he has two children, a son and a daughter. He served less than a year in the Army National Guard and left with a private rank. He got his high school diploma and “got my Christian counseling certificate so I could help people who went through what I went through,” he said.
He also said that he has his behavior analysis certification so that he can help people with autism, which he says he has. “There are few resources for mothers who do not get enough money,” he said.
Reaction has been swift in the days since the woman went public with her accusations against Carter. The rapper released a statement calling the claims “absurd” and “disgusting in nature” and strongly criticizing his lawyer.
There are some inconsistencies in his story about that night.
Her father told NBC News that he doesn’t remember picking her up after the alleged attack, arguing there is a key element in her trial.
According to her address at the time, her father would have driven more than five hours from her home to pick her up.
“I feel like I’m going to remember that, and I don’t,” he said in an interview Thursday. “I’ve got a lot going on, but I mean, that’s something that would stay in my mind.”
The woman’s father, who says he found out about the case he is being accused of this week, says he remembers that they once took her in the middle of the night. But, he said, “it was a local drive.”
When asked about her father’s story in the interview that followed on Friday, the woman said that she stood by saying that he was the one who took her and he may have forgotten.
“There are many things, and these are things that we always argue about, something that he said or did in New York at that time that he does not remember,” he said. “It causes a lot of fighting sometimes in the house.”
Regarding her father’s memory, Buzbee told NBC News, “We agree that he says he doesn’t remember. … His daughter explains that she didn’t remember that time because of the personal problems she had at the time. We are talking about a time that is more than 20 years ago.”
The woman also told NBC News that she talked to singer Benji Madden at the after party.
But a rep for Madden confirmed that neither Benji nor his brother Joel attended the 2000 VMAs and that they were on tour in the Midwest at the time. (The woman did not accuse the brother of any crime.)
“Indeed, what is clear from my experience and [the] the path I took to my experiences. Not all faces are clear,” the woman said in a follow-up interview on Friday. “So I made a mistake. I may be mistaken.”
The woman was also unable to provide more information about the after-party she said she went to.
Professional photos reviewed by NBC News show Combs and Carter were among the celebrities who attended the VMAs after party at Lotus nightclub in New York City. It’s unclear when the photos were taken, or if Combs and Carter attended any after-parties.
The building where Lotus lived, now closed, does not match the description of the house that the woman is described in the court and interviews.
“I didn’t know exactly where we were going or how long it took,” said the woman when asked on Tuesday where she thought she was taken that night. He added that he had estimated the length of time the journey had taken in court.
Buzbee said, “We have tried to confirm the exact location. We have never said that the location was the Lotus club. Our client has been clear and detailed about the list of the place he says he was taken, and he never said that it was the Lotus Club.”
He added, “We can’t imagine if there is an after party, because again, he doesn’t know.”
Also among the woman’s unsupported allegations is how she arrived in New York City that night.
One of her attorneys gave NBC News the name and birthday of the friend she said drove her, who may have been in her 20s at the time. That person is already dead. Attempts by NBC News to reach the man’s relatives were unsuccessful.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com