Jay-Z (legally known as Shawn Corey Carter) has had no choice but to be quite litigious in his late career as a media mogul. And this latest case has had him running out of ways of avoiding a paternity lawsuit to a man who has long claimed to be his biological son.
He’s been in and out of court protecting his business dealings — who can forget that nasty lawsuit that tied him to a Diddy freak-off — but recently, he’s been fighting a paternity lawsuit. According to his legal team, this particular case has been brewing quietly for a long time, and now Jay-Z’s lawyers are making claims of harassment.
Rymir Satterthwaite has repeatedly claimed that Jay-Z is his biological father and has filed multiple lawsuits in an attempt to get the “Empire State of Mind” rapper to submit to a court-ordered paternity test. Rymir, now 32, and his godmother, Lillie Coley, allege that Jay-Z engaged in a brief romance with Rymir’s late mother in the 1990s when she was still 16, resulting in his conception. Lillie and Rymir have also claimed that Jay-Z has never directly denied being Rymir’s father.
The latest lawsuit from Rymir alleges that Jay-Z has been using his significant public influence to tamper with legal proceedings by fraternizing with various public officials. Jay-Z’s lawyers are calling these claims “fabricated” and allege this has been a decades-long form of harassment, rejected repeatedly in other courts.
Jay-Z’s personal life, especially his family, has been fodder for gossip for years, so it’s understandable that he would at least try to keep this out of the public domain. According to court documents obtained by E!, Jay-Z’s team tried to do the same with this new lawsuit, reportedly attempting to reach Lillie and Rymir directly, but Lillie hung up on them. Jay-Z’s lawyers claim they were calling to request more time to prepare for the case. He’s been rumored to always do what it takes to succeed.
Rymir is not seeking unclaimed back child support. Instead, he is seeking compensation for emotional distress, reputational harm, and loss of financial support. It’s worth noting he’s also seeking a jury of peers to adjudicate this long, worn-out case at this point. Rymir claims Jay-Z has managed to avoid a paternity test for this long through the help of “co-conspirators,” which he alleges include agents and even some public officials.
Lillie and Rymir claim that Jay-Z rose to fame right after Rymir was born — Jay-Z’s first album, Reasonable Doubt, came out 29 years ago — and that his connections inside the entertainment industry employed what the two co-plaintiffs refer to as a “scorched earth effort” to erase everything about him that did not align with the image they wanted to portray.
This is, by far, one of the most complex and layered celebrity paternity cases in recent history. Whoever is right will certainly be proven in court. Jay-Z has the legal firepower to protect him if he’s truly being harassed, so if the claims being made here are all lies, he should be just fine.
