Jay-Z just told the court he felt a “gun to his head” over that now-dropped lawsuit from attorney Tony Buzbee.
On Feb. 10, the hip-hop mogul filed a declaration in Los Angeles Superior Court, saying Buzbee tried to mess with his head by filing a lawsuit from a Jane Doe who claimed Diddy and Jay-Z raped her in 2000 when she was 13. Jay’s papers also reveal Roc Nation lost deals worth “$20 million per year.”
In the docs, Jay-Z called out Buzbee for timing the complaint right before Mufasa: The Lion King premiere – starring his daughter Blue Ivy – saying he wanted to “put me in the position of having to choose between supporting my daughter or hiding to avoid the negative press.”
“I was harshly criticized by others for accompanying my daughter to the premiere of her movie a day after Mr. Buzbee filed the Jane Doe lawsuit against me,” Jay-Z stated in the filing, Deadline reports. “Media outlets reported that Disney was hesitant over my attendance at the premiere because of the accusations.”
Jay-Z also says Buzbee’s lawsuit hit his wallet hard – like $20 million hard.
“Mr. Buzbee’s actions undermined my relationship, and my company Roc Nation’s relationship, with other businesses in the sports and entertainment space,” the filing states. “We have agreements to produce entertainment programs for certain sporting events. After Mr. Buzbee filed the lawsuit, the media reported that other businesses could end their deals with Roc Nation, and forced one to speak out and address whether these false allegations would end our business relationship.
“Immediately after Mr. Buzbee went public with his false accusations, my company Roc Nation also lost other contracts in the sports and entertainment space that would have generated revenues of approximately $20 million per year,” the filing continues.
Stephen A. Smith jumped in on his show, blasting Jay’s so-called friends who stayed quiet. “Most of us would have let our lawyers handle this, we would have shut up and stood quiet,” he said. “And to the people that have smiled in Jay-Z’s face, supposed to be his friends, where are y’all at?”
“If y’all ever handle some stuff with me the way that some of these people handled stuff with Jay-Z, y’all can kiss my ass and you go to hell,” Smith fired off. “Because at the very least somebody should be able to say, ‘I’ve known Stephen A. for 20, 25, 30, 40 years, nah I can’t see him doing that.'”
Smith praised Jay-Z for speaking up himself. “You just gonna go silent and leave him hanging like that?” Smith ranted. “Ain’t like he was silent. Ain’t like he was hiding and leaving others to talk for him. He spoke and said, ‘I’m innocent this isn’t true,’ and nobody could stand up and say, ‘Nath that brother that I know, I couldn’t see that.”
