Will Jay-Z face the same fate as P Diddy? He attended the same debauched parties, now he’s been accused of rape as his friend languishes behind bars, writes TOM LEONARD

The glitzy footage of Sean ‘P Diddy’ Combs celebrating his 50th birthday in December 2019 captured the music mogul in his decadent and narcissistic glory.

More than 300 guests, including Naomi Campbell, Kim Kardashian and Leonardo DiCaprio, were welcomed to the rapper’s $61million Beverly Hills mansion where they were piled with champagne and Combs’s own-brand vodka. 

There was also a stand doling out cannabis products and, outside, a huge silver statue of a woman’s body had been erected.

The revels hit a solitary sour note when a video emerged showing one of the celebrity guests angrily grabbing someone’s phone. That was Jay-Z – a friend of Combs’ since the 1990s – who was reportedly upset that a man had been filming his wife, Beyonce, on the dancefloor.

With or without his famous spouse, the rapper had been a regular at Combs’s extravagant parties for years – even using his events to release new music as the pair had long indulged in a friendly rivalry.

But Jay-Z, along with the rest of the showbusiness world, has been silent over his old friend since Combs faced a slew of sexual-abuse allegations connected to some of those parties.

In September, Diddy – currently behind bars in a Brooklyn detention centre – was charged with racketeering, ‘sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion’ and ‘transportation to engage in prostitution’.

Since then, scores of accusers have come forward to say Combs sexually abused them – often in exchange for a promise to advance their music careers – at his parties. Combs has denied any wrongdoing.

Many have wondered how long it would take before other famous names were drawn into the controversy. In fact, fellow rapper 50 Cent had for months singled out the billionaire Jay-Z — whose real name is Shawn Carter – for mockery over his silence in a series of barbed Instagram posts.

One claimed Carter was ‘in hibernation’ and in another he posted Carter’s face on the back of a milk carton with the caption ‘Anybody seen J?’.

Now, however, the multimillionaire rapper has been dragged into the scandal after he was accused by an unnamed woman of raping her alongside Combs, now 55, when she was 13 – a claim he has dismissed as a ‘blackmail attempt’. 

The accuser claimed in a lawsuit that she had wanted to attend the MTV Video Music Awards in September 2000 and had been asking limousine drivers for help getting into the New York event or an after-party.

One driver told her that he worked for Combs and that she ‘fit what Diddy was looking for’, the lawsuit said. 

The driver is said to have invited her to a party after the awards show and told her to return to his car later in the evening after he had driven Carter and Combs to the party.

The woman says the driver drove her for 20 minutes to a white house with a U-shaped driveway where, on arrival, she was asked to sign a document she believed was a non-disclosure agreement.

She claimed the event was filled with celebrities and people taking cocaine and marijuana. After being offered a drink that made her feel ‘woozy, light-headed and [like] she needed to lie down’, the lawsuit said she went into an empty bedroom to rest. Shortly afterwards, she claims Combs and Carter entered the room with a female star, named only as ‘Celebrity B’. 

Combs ‘aggressively approached [her] with a crazed look in his eyes, grabbed her and said, “You are ready to party!”’, the lawsuit states. 

She says Combs threw her against a wall and, when she stumbled, hurled her on to the bed. At that point, Carter allegedly started undressing her as she ‘grew more and more disoriented’.

She claims she was then pinned down on the bed and raped by both men – starting with Carter – as the female star watched. She says she fought back and when Combs backed away in surprise, she was able to escape.

The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, says the plaintiff still suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression as a result of the alleged rapes.

Combs denied the allegation, while Carter, who started a romantic relationship with Beyonce Knowles that same year, released a statement dismissing the claim. 

It added: ‘My lawyer received a blackmail attempt, called a demand letter, from a “lawyer” named Tony Buzbee. What he had calculated was the nature of these allegations and the public scrutiny would make me want to settle.

’He went on: ‘No sir, it had the opposite effect! It made me want to expose you for the fraud you are in a VERY public fashion. So no, I will not give you ONERED PENNY!!’ Carter said the accusations were ‘so heinous in nature’ that he urged his accuser to ‘file a criminal complaint, not a civil one’.

He added: ‘Whomever [sic] would commit such a crime against a minor should be locked away, would you not agree? These allegations would deserve real justice if that were the case.’

The star even brought his family – including his three children – into the controversy, saying: ‘My only heartbreak is for my family. My wife and I will have to sit our children down…and explain the cruelty and greed of people.’

Mr Buzbee, the plaintiff’s lawyer, says he is representing more than 120 accusers in civil lawsuits who claim Combs sexually abused them between 1991 and today.

They include 25 people who were under-age at the time, among them a nine-year-old boy and other boys who were as young as 14 and 15.

Mr Buzbee hit back at Carter, insisting that the rape claimant ‘never demanded a penny from him’ but ‘only sought confidential mediation’.

He added: ‘Since I sent the letter on her behalf, Mr Carter has not only sued me, but he has tried to bully and harass me and this plaintiff. His conduct has had the opposite impact. She is emboldened. I’m very proud of her resolve.’

Despite having not yet been convicted of anything, Combs has suffered a rapid and dramatic fall from grace since the sex-abuse scandal erupted. New York mayor Eric Adams told the rapper, who was recently denied bail for a third time, that he is taking back his ‘key to the city’.

Some are now asking if Jay-Z faces the same fate, having attended Combs’s parties where debauched, if not illegal, sexual behaviour were allegedly rife behind the scenes.

In the words of Combs’s former publicist, Rob Shuter: ‘When Diddy winked at you and said come into the VIP section [at the parties], you knew you were going to have a really good night.’ 

But others – including fans of his wife who was yesterday crowned ‘the greatest pop star of the 21st century’ by music trade bible Billboard – have come to Jay-Z’s aid.Carter has certainly had a stratospheric rise since his delinquent early years in Brooklyn. 

He shot his brother over a stolen ring when he was 12 (the brother never pressed charges), sold crack cocaine and pleaded guilty in 2001 to aggravated assault for stabbing a record producer (who later claimed Carter was innocent). 

But Jay-Z, who married Beyonce in 2008, went on to become one of the US’s biggest rap stars with hits including Empire State Of Mind. 

He and his wife even boast the Obamas among their fans.As a black commenter on X yesterday warned Mr Buzbee: ‘You severely miscalculated with this one. Black folks are not going to let you tear down Jay-Z. Bridge too far for many.’

Time will tell to what extent the rapper has cause to regret his partying past with P Diddy.