Singer Duffy reveals rape and kidnap ordeal ‘to help others who have suffered the same’
SINGING star Duffy has shared a traumatic account of being drugged, raped and held captive for weeks.
The 35-year-old said she was telling her “dark” story to help “others who have suffered the same”.
Duffy, from Bangor, Gwynedd, said she was drugged at a restaurant on her birthday before being held captive in her own home. Then she was taken to a foreign country.
In a long post written on a web page she shared a link to via her verified Instagram account, Duffy added: “I hope it comforts you to feel less ashamed if you feel alone.”
The singer, whose full name is Aimee Duffy, first revealed her ordeal via an Instagram post in February, and revealed more details of being kidnapped on her webpage.
She said: “It was my birthday, I was drugged at a restaurant, I was drugged then for four weeks and travelled to a foreign country.
“I can’t remember getting on the plane and came round in the back of a travelling vehicle.
“I was put into a hotel room and the perpetrator returned and raped me. I remember the pain and trying to stay conscious in the room after it happened.
“I was stuck with him for another day, he didn’t look at me, I was to walk behind him, I was somewhat conscious and withdrawn. I could have been disposed of by him.”
Duffy said she does not know how she had “the strength to endure those days”. She claimed the perpetrator made “veiled confessions of wanting to kill me”.
Duffy said she was sharing her ordeal because “we are living in a hurting world”.
She added: “I am no longer ashamed that something deeply hurt me, anymore. I believe that if you speak from the heart within you, the heart within others will answer.
“As dark as my story is, I do speak from my heart, for my life, and for the life of others, whom have suffered the same.”
She escaped by “fleeing”, Duffy said, but no account of how she got away was provided. She added she “cannot remember getting home”.
The singer said she initially feared going to the police, but eventually told a female officer, after someone threatened to “out her story”.
Duffy said she was at “high risk of suicide” following the ordeal and has spent “almost 10 years completely alone”.
She thanked her psychologist for helping her through the trauma, adding she feels she can “leave this decade behind” and is now “free”
Duffy hopes to release “a body of work some day”, but also said: “I very much doubt I will ever be the person people once knew.”
When Duffy broke her silence about the incident she said many of her fans would “wonder what happened to me, where did I disappear to and why”.
Her last album, Endlessly, came out in 2010. Last month a new song by the singer, titled Something Beautiful, aired on BBC Radio 2.