The singer Duffy has opened up about the rape that she endured and saw her retreat from public life.
Duffy went into detail on her website describing how she was abducted, taken to another country and raped. She also tells of how she escaped but did not feel safe to go to the police.
“It was my birthday, I was drugged at a restaurant, I was drugged then for four weeks and travelled to a foreign country,” she wrote. “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 I was stuck with him for another day, he didn’t look at me, I was to walk behind him, I was somewhat conscious and withdrawn.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.”
The singer says she does not know where she got “the strength to endure those days”. She also said the attacker made “veiled confessions of wanting to kill me”.
She flew back to the UK with her attacker and escaped by “fleeing”.
“It didn’t feel safe to go to the police,” she continued. “I felt if anything went wrong, I would be dead, and he would have killed me. I could not risk being mishandled or it being all over the news during my danger.”
The singer came to prominence in 2008 thanks to tracks like Mercy and Warwick Avenue but disappeared from the public eye after two successful albums. What happened to her career remained a mystery until she revealed about the rape ordeal earlier this year. She said she wanted to share her story now because “we are living in a hurting world”.
“I hope it comforts you to feel less ashamed if you feel alone,” she said.
“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.
“I can now leave this decade behind,” she concluded. “Where the past belongs. Hopefully no more ‘what happened to Duffy questions’, now you know … and I am free.”
