Okay.
A Los Angeles judge said Tuesday that Jay-Z’s defamation lawsuit against Houston attorney Tony Buzbee had enough merit to go to trial, Rolling Stone Magazine reports. However, the rapper’s separate extortion claim against Buzbee may not stand in trial.
Judge Mark H. Epstein said in his preliminary ruling this week the claims that Buzbee’s statements and interactions on social media outside the courtroom could be considered defamatory were enough to proceed to trial, according to Rolling Stone.
Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, filed a lawsuit anonymously against the Buzbee Law Firm in November 2024, accusing the attorney of threatening to publicize false allegations of sexual assault of a female minor. Carter pushed against the claims and said Buzbee was trying to extort him for money.
Buzbee amended the lawsuit, which was since withdrawn, naming Carter and Sean “Diddy” Combs as the perpetrators of an alleged rape of a 13-year-old girl in 2000. The victim was referred to in the lawsuit as “Jane Doe.”
Epstein said Carter had a basis to sue Buzbee after the Houston attorney referred to his client as a “sexual assault survivor” in a social media post from last year, according to Rolling Stone. He reportedly also liked a post on X that speculated Carter was the alleged assaulter.
“This is the hardest question of the case, the ‘actual malice’ question. If you say, ‘I’m not going to name names until I’ve done real investigating,’ and then you name a name, isn’t the implication that you did conduct a real investigation? And if you didn’t, is it okay?” he said, according to reporting from the Rolling Stone.
However, Carter’s extortion claims, Epstein said, likely wouldn’t hold up in court since the two demand letters sent by Buzbee to Carter didn’t make a promise to refrain from going to authorities if Carter agreed to pay money. He said the context was written as a “settlement with a non-disclosure element.”
[…]
Carter had been vying to get the “Jane Doe” lawsuit thrown out after she admitted in an NBC News interview last December to making some mistakes when recounting the night Carter and Combs allegedly raped her. NBC News also noted in its article that the inconsistencies do not necessarily mean the allegations were false.
The New York rapper released the statement after calling the outcome of the thrown-out lawsuit a “victory.”
“The fictional tale they created is laughable, if not for the seriousness of the claims. I would not wish this experience on anyone,” Carter wrote in a statement posted on social media.
See here, here, here, and here for the background. All I know is that the lawsuits were flying back and forth between Buzbee and Jay-Z for a hot minute there, and now Buzbee has backed down and Jay-Z is pressing forward. This is another one of those times when I will want for there to be a well-researched podcast series after all is said and done so someone can explain to me just what the hell happened.
Behind the Bastards had 3 episodes on Diddy, so they look like the best bet for a follow up.
IANAL, but Buzbee talking smack on social media about cases in litigation strikes me as particularly unwise.