Jay-Z has officially wrapped up a decade-long legal battle by choosing not to seek attorney fees from Rymir Satterthwaite, who has long insisted the rap legend is his biological father.
Newly filed federal court documents show the billionaire rapper allowed a judge-set deadline to pass without requesting reimbursement for his legal costs, even after winning the case outright in Los Angeles federal court. Earlier this week, the judge confirmed the case is permanently closed and the window for Jay-Z to recover fees has ended.
Satterthwaite voluntarily dismissed his lawsuit against Hov in late July. In it, he claimed Jay-Z is his father and accused him of refusing to take a paternity test while allegedly using his legal power to shut the case down. When he dropped the suit, Satterthwaite insisted it wasn’t the end, calling it a strategic move.
“I have not stopped my fight. I did withdraw my case, but it’s for a reason. It’s not because I’m stopping it or I’m going to refile. It’s just a lot going on behind closed doors […] I have not gotten any DNA test. I have not gotten a settlement. It is not over,” he said during a livestream.
Just weeks earlier, Jay-Z’s legal team blasted the allegations, describing the filings as a “decades-long harassment campaign” and calling the claims “fabricated” and “rejected.”
This latest development comes shortly after U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett dismissed a separate, related lawsuit with prejudice on November 4, effectively preventing any re-filing of the same claims in federal court. That case was brought by paralegal Lillie Coley, Satterthwaite’s godmother and legal guardian, who has repeatedly accused Jay-Z of avoiding paternity testing and leveraging his influence to escape scrutiny.
Coley’s lawsuit repeated many of Satterthwaite’s long-standing allegations, claiming his late mother, Wanda, had a relationship with Jay-Z in the early 1990s. The matter had already moved through New Jersey courts for years, where judges consistently determined they lacked the authority to compel Jay-Z to take a paternity test. Coley and Satterthwaite later accused state officials of mishandling the situation and shielding a high-profile figure.
Throughout the entire saga, Jay-Z’s lawyers have maintained the paternity claims are part of an ongoing harassment effort, emphasizing that no court has ever validated the allegations.
