<\/p>\n
\n\tJay-Z<\/a> opened up about the \u201cuncontrollable anger\u201d he felt after being sued for sexual assault<\/a>, and explained his refusal to settle the case in a new interview with GQ<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tThe suit was brought in 2024 by a Jane Doe, who claimed Jay and Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs sexually assaulted her during a VMAs afterparty in 2000, when she was 13. Jay vociferously denied the allegations (as did Combs), and wound up suing<\/a> Jane and her lawyer, Tony Buzbee<\/a>, for malicious prosecution and defamation. Jane eventually dropped<\/a> her suit last year, while Jay\u2019s suit was dismissed<\/a> a few months later.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tSpeaking on it publicly for the first time, Jay said the ordeal \u201ctook a lot out of\u201d him and made him angrier than he\u2019d been \u201cin a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHe continued: \u201cYou don\u2019t put that on someone \u2014 that\u2019s a thing that you better be super sure. It used to be like that. You had to be super sure before you put those kind of things on a person. Especially a person like me. Even when we were doing the worst things, we had those kind of rules. There was a line: no women, no kids<\/em>. You hear those sayings, but those are the things that I took from the street. We lived and died by that. So it\u2019s strict for me, like it meant a lot to me.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWhile the rap mogul said he could\u2019ve quickly settled the suit, a move that would\u2019ve been both \u201ccheaper\u201d and \u201cquicker,\u201d he explained bluntly, \u201cI can\u2019t take a settlement \u2014 it ain\u2019t in my DNA\u2026 I can\u2019t do it<\/em>. I would die.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tJay said he \u201cneeded the people around me more than ever\u201d to overcome the anger he felt, especially because it didn\u2019t feel right to channel those emotions to the place he usually would: music.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI\u2019m not sure with the amount of negativity in the world that people needed me to add to that with my feelings \u2014 because it would have been harsh, and it would have been harsh on everybody,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know how to make music that\u2019s not reflective of how I\u2019m feeling at the moment\u2026. I had to be real and honest to my experiences at the moment. It would have been fiery.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n