On Monday night, less than 48 hours after a woman accused Jay-Z of raping her when she was 13 in a civil suit, the Carter family did their best to ignore the controversy on the red carpet of the Mufasa premiere.
Beyoncé, who voices Nala in the Lion King prequel, brought Jay-Z (real name Shawn Carter) and their 12-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy, who’s also playing a role in the film, to the L.A. screening. Also joining the family outing: Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, fresh off an Instagram mishap that seemed to involve her liking a post about the allegations against her son-in-law. Hours before she appeared on the red carpet, Knowles claimed that, actually, her account had been hacked. “As you all know I do not play about my family,” she wrote in a Notes-app post to Instagram. “So if you see something uncharacteristic of me. Just know that it is not me !”
On Sunday, a civil suit that was initially filed by a Jane Doe against Sean “Diddy” Combs in October was amended to include Jay-Z as a defendant, with Jane Doe claiming the musician raped her at an MTV Video Music Awards after-party that Diddy’s limousine driver brought her to when she was 13. Jay-Z has denied the allegations and filed a motion requesting that the woman reveal her identity. In a statement posted to X by his entertainment company, Roc Nation, he accused the woman’s lawyer, Tony Buzbee — who runs a hotline for Diddy accusers — of blackmail and told him to file a criminal complaint. “My wife and I will have to sit our children down, one of whom is at the age where her friends will surely see the press and ask questions about the nature of these claims,” Jay-Z wrote, “and explain the cruelty and greed of people.”