Lifestyle
Woman who accuses Jay-Z of raping her at 13 shares new details about alleged assault
Sean Combs (left) and Jay-Z attend the Los Angeles Lakers vs. Houston Rockets game at Staples Center on May 4, 2009, in Los Angeles.
Noel Vasquez/Getty Images
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Noel Vasquez/Getty Images
The woman who accused Jay-Z and Sean “Diddy” Combs of raping her when she was 13 years old shared new details about her recollection of the night of the alleged assault.
In an interview with NBC News, the woman — now a 38-year-old mother who lives in Alabama — said she had stayed quiet for 24 years because she felt no one would have believed her.
“Even if somebody found out, who was gonna believe me? I mean, it was to the word of two celebrities against mine,” she said.
NBC said in the report the woman, who is referred to in court documents as “Jane Doe,” declined to be identified.
Among the new details, the Alabama woman claimed that during the alleged assault, Jay-Z — whose real name is Shawn Carter — placed his hand over her mouth and told her to stop when she resisted.
The woman told the outlet that she acknowledged there are some inconsistencies in her account but firmly maintained that she was attacked.
In a statement to NPR, Carter denied the allegations of assault, saying the complaint was filed in “pursuit of money and fame.” He added, “This incident didn’t happen and yet he filed it in court and doubled down in the press. True Justice is coming. We fight FROM victory, not FOR victory. This was over before it began. This 1-800 lawyer doesn’t realize it yet, but, soon.”
Combs has denied all accusations against him. His legal team told NPR on Saturday that now, a plaintiff of Buzbee’s has been “exposed” of falsely claiming to be a victim. “This is the beginning of the end of this shameful money grab,” Combs’ attorneys said in a shared statement.
The lawsuit against Combs, filed by Texas attorney Tony Buzbee in October in New York, was refiled on Sunday to include Carter.
Several lawsuits alleging physical assault, rape and other misconduct have been filed against Combs since his arrest on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. But the Alabama woman’s decision to refile her lawsuit to include Carter was a major development — as he is the only other high-profile defendant named in the case alongside Combs.
The night of the assault, with new alleged details
The Alabama woman alleged the assault took place in 2000 at an MTV Video Music Awards after-party, according to the lawsuit and her interview with NBC.
At the time, she was 13 and living in Rochester, N.Y. She dreamed of attending the VMAs so she snuck out of her house and a friend agreed to drive her to Radio City Music Hall in New York City, the woman told NBC.
But without a ticket, she said she stayed outside where crowds watched the awards show on a jumbotron. The woman looked for a way to gain entry either to the VMAs or an after-party. That was how she met a limousine driver who claimed to work for Combs. According to the suit, the driver offered to take her to an “after-party.”
“The driver told her that Combs liked younger girls and said she ‘fit what Diddy was looking for,’ ” the suit said.
The driver picked up the 13-year-old later that night and dropped her off at a large white house, where she was met by two men who asked her to a sign a document before going inside, the suit alleges. According to the suit, the woman said she now believes that document was a non-disclosure agreement, adding that she never received a copy.
The lawsuit says the residence was filled with celebrities. “I’m talking to, like, Fred Durst, Benji Madden, about his tattoo, because, you know, about his tattoo that’s ‘The Last Supper,’ because I have a religious background, so it was just something to talk about,” she told NBC.
Durst’s and Madden’s teams did not immediately respond to NPR’s request for comment, but Madden’s representative told NBC News that the musician did not attend the VMAs because he was on tour with his band Good Charlotte in the Midwest at the time.
The woman told NBC News that later in the night, she took a drink that was being served by the waitresses. After a few sips, she began to feel lightheaded and looked for a room to lie down.
Soon after, the suit alleged that Combs, Carter and an unnamed woman entered the room. The suit accused Carter of raping her first, followed by Combs, while the woman watched.
“Jay-Z comes over, holds me down. I start trying to push away. He puts his hand over my mouth, tells me to stop it, to cut the s***, and then he rapes me like he had me overpowered,” she told NBC News.
According to the suit, the woman fought back and eventually fled the house. She later found a gas station and used their phone to call her father, who came to pick her up.
“I was upset, and the person at the gas station could tell that I was obviously upset, and she let me use the phone. I called my dad because he was the only person I trust at that time. I told him I messed up and I needed a ride home,” she said in the NBC interview.
NBC News identified some inconsistencies in her account of the night of the assault. In addition to the discrepancy about meeting Madden at the after-party, NBC said the woman’s father did not recall picking her up. NBC could also not determine whether an after-party occurred at any location matching her description.
When asked about the inconsistencies, the woman told NBC News, “ I have made some mistakes.” She added, “Honestly, what is the clearest is what happened to me.”
Her attorney, Tony Buzbee, said in a statement to NPR: “Our client remains fiercely adamant that what she has stated is true, to the best of her memory,” adding that she also agreed to submit to a polygraph.
Students walk on the Stanford University campus on March 14, 2019, in Stanford, Calif.
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Ben Margot/AP
When Theo Baker arrived at Stanford University a few years ago, he joined the student newspaper, following the path of his journalist parents, Peter Baker, a White House correspondent for The New York Times, and Susan Glasser, a writer for The New Yorker.
Through his reporting as a student journalist, he eventually broke a story about manipulated data in Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s neuroscience research that helped lead to the university president’s resignation.
Theo Baker’s book, How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University was released May 19. In it, Baker describes Stanford as a place where proximity to Silicon Valley gives rise to a parallel system of influence, recruitment and money, with investors looking to identify promising students almost as soon as they arrive on campus.
He told Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep there was “a sort of Stanford inside Stanford,” where elite students are drawn into an “alternate reality” of excess and access to cut corners.
In the interview, he discusses how Stanford is not just a university but also a pipeline where status and power can matter as much as ideas.
We reached out to Stanford University for comment and have not heard back.
Listen to the interview by clicking play on the blue box above.
The scoreboard shows the results of the women’s singles final match between Iga Swiatek of Poland and Amanda Anisimova of the U.S. at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Saturday, July 12, 2025.
Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
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Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
Fifteen points in tennis? Nice. Thirty, 40 — even better. Advantage — that sounds good. “Love” — that also must be great, right? Well, not quite.
As the French Open rolls on and Serena Williams has announced her return to the sport, maybe you’ve been paying a little more attention to tennis. The sport’s scoring system is notably distinct, and can sometimes be hard to grasp for newcomers. But even tennis aficionados might not know why, or how, “love” became the unmistakable callout for zero points. For this installment of NPR’s Word of the Week, we’re exploring how a word that signifies trailing behind got such a sweet name.
“Love” comes from the heart — or an egg?
It’s hard to pinpoint when the first tennis ball went over the net. Tennis is a derivative of lots of other sports, such as “jeu de paume,” a handball game played in France, said JT Buzanga, the collections manager at the International Tennis Hall of Fame museum.
But tennis became a patented, official sport in 1874, said Steve Flink, a journalist whose tennis coverage got him inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. It has retained its unique, mysterious scoring system ever since.
“By and large, the original system has held up almost entirely,” Flink said.
The use of “love” goes back to the late 18th century, said Jesse Sheidlower, a lexicographer. But it was used earlier than that in card games such as whist and bridge. Before the term made its way to tennis, the sport favored plain old “nothing,” or “nil,” he said.
Why love in the first place, though? Historians don’t really know for sure, but there are a few theories.
The French could have something to do with it. Some historians believe “love” derives from “l’oeuf,” which means “the egg” in French. Because eggs are shaped like zeros, terms such as “goose egg” and “duck’s egg” have been used in other contexts to mean zero, Sheidlower said.
It’s also possible English speakers mispronounced l’oeuf as “love.” But Sheidlower isn’t convinced that’s the answer.
“It’s the French equivalent of an English expression. But since that expression doesn’t appear in French, the French word wouldn’t have been used,” he said.
To be sure, France has had a lot of influence on tennis culture, Buzanga said. For example, “deuce” or a game tied at 40 points, comes from the French word for “two”: “deux.” But he prefers another prominent theory: that “love” comes from the idiom “for the love of the game.” Even if a player hasn’t scored, it doesn’t matter, because their heart is in it. It’s the theory Sheidlower said is the most plausible, because the idiom was used by the English before tennis was popularized.
Another variation of the “love of the game” theory is that the word could have come from the Dutch “lof,” or “honor” — or the Latin “amare,” meaning “to love,” Flink said.
But if tennis’ “love” doesn’t come from a French word, the theory at least has a French sensibility.
“I think the ‘for the love of the game’ is kind of romantic,” Buzanga said.
“Love” probably isn’t going anywhere
Tennis used to be a sport of leisure. The style of play has changed a lot over the years; players are more athletic and competitive, for instance, Flink said. But the rules of the sport are more steadfast, he said.
“There’s this incredible, enduring respect for tradition in tennis,” he said. “Changes are not made easily.”
There has been one major change in modern history: the tie-break. Matches can go on and on because players have to score two consecutive points to break a deuce, or by two games to break a tied set. But the onset of television meant matches would have to get shorter if the sport wanted to capture a larger audience, Flink said.
Change even came for “love.” An alternative sprouted up in the 1970s, and is still used today: “bagel,” named for its zero shape, Sheidlower said. Novices may say “zero,” and insiders will understand what they mean, but they “will needle them about it,” Flink said.
But “love” still prevails.
“People kind of like it,” Flink said. “It’s different. Why say zero when you can say love?”
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