Duffy reveals ‘dark story’ of drug, rape and kidnap ordeal in brave online statement

Singer Duffy performs on stage at the Sydney Opera House in 2009: Getty Images
Singer Duffy performs on stage at the Sydney Opera House in 2009: Getty Images

British singer Duffy has opened up about being raped and held captive, in a long and deeply personal statement.

In February, the pop star, 35, told fans she had been drugged, sexually assaulted and falsely imprisoned over a prologued period of time, but did not reveal the circumstances around the alleged ordeal.

But on Sunday evening, via a specially created website, she shared the “dark story” which she said began on her birthday a decade ago.

“I have been very warned by some I know not to tell you what I am about to tell you,” she wrote.

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“Some alluded that I would pretty much be finished in whatever chances I have to make music publicly again, some have said I would be scorned by the public, another said I would be called selfish that the rapist is still at large.”

However, she added: “If I destroy my future, I do it to honour my past.”

The Welsh singer then issued a warning to readers to “skip the next twenty lines if you do not want to read the exact account of the kidnapping.”

She explained that she was drugged at a restaurant on her birthday before being held captive in her own home and taken to a foreign country.

“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,” she wrote.

Singer Duffy performs on stage at the Sydney Opera House in 2009 (Getty Images)
Singer Duffy performs on stage at the Sydney Opera House in 2009 (Getty Images)

She went on to say that the man “made veiled confessions of wanting to kill her,” admitting she didn’t know how she “had the strength to endure those days.”

The 35-year-old, real name Aimee Anne Duffy, then explained how she escaped the man after while they were overseas, but she couldn’t even remember getting home.

She said she initially feared going to the police, but eventually told a female officer what happened after someone threatened to “out her story”.​

Duffy added that she was at “high risk of suicide” following the ordeal and has spent “almost 10 years completely alone”.​

But she said she now feels she can “leave this decade behind” and is now “free”, thanking her psychologist for helping her through the trauma.

She said she hopes to release “a body of work some day”, but added: “I very much doubt I will ever be the person people once knew.”

Her last album, Endlessly, came out in 2010 but last month a new song by the singer, titled Something Beautiful, aired on BBC Radio 2.

“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 wrote.

“When the ordeal happened, it destabilised me so severely, it took years and years, around 90,000 hours.

“I sometimes didn’t know how I could make it through, it was hard and almost impossible.

"But I got here, as will you. Hallelujah.”

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