Singer Duffy shares harrowing details of past rape, kidnapping

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Duffy is finally breaking her silence about the details of her horrifying experience surviving rape and kidnapping. The “Mercy” singer wrote in a 3,600-word blog post on Sunday that she was motivated to speak out amid the coronavirus pandemic to serve as a “momentary distraction” or “some comfort that one can come out of darkness.” …

Duffy is finally breaking her silence about the details of her horrifying experience surviving rape and kidnapping.

The “Mercy” singer wrote in a 3,600-word blog post on Sunday that she was motivated to speak out amid the coronavirus pandemic to serve as a “momentary distraction” or “some comfort that one can come out of darkness.”

Duffy first revealed in February that she was raped, drugged and held captive, but did not disclose details about her experience until now out of fear.

“I thought the public disclosure of my story would utterly destroy my life, emotionally, while hiding my story was destroying my life so much more,” she wrote. “I believe that not singing is killing me. So, I just have to be strong and disclose it and face all my fears head on. I’ve come to realise I can’t erase myself, I live in my being, so I have to be completely honest and have faith in the outcome.”

According to the singer, she was drugged at a restaurant on her birthday, then kidnapped, and for the following several weeks, continued to be drugged by her captor. During this time, she was taken to a foreign country.

“I can’t remember getting on the plane and came round in the back of a traveling vehicle,” she wrote. “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. ”

The singer said she contemplated fleeing, but was “afraid he would call the police on me, for running away, and maybe they would track me down as a missing person.”

When the assailant returned to her home, Duffy said she was drugged again.

“I do not know if he raped me there during that time, I only remember coming round in the car in the foreign country and the escape that would happen by me fleeing in the days following that,” she said. “I do not know why I was not drugged overseas; it leads me to think I was given a class A drug and he could not travel with it.”

Writing that she once again did not go to the police because she feared for her life, she added, “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. I really had to follow what instincts I had.”

Duffy said she first blamed herself thinking, “[what] I must have done to invite this into my life.” Ultimately, she found solace in a quote she had read: “In the end, it’s never between them and you, it’s always between them and God”.

Duffy noted that she finally told people about her abuser when someone threatened to “out” her story. Aside from police, she opened up to a psychologist a few months after the attack.

“Without her I may not have made it through,” Duffy said. “I was high risk of suicide in the aftermath. She got to know me, saw me as a person, learned about me and navigated me. She did it very gently. I could not look her in the eyes for the first eight or so sessions, eye contact was something I struggled with. The thought of recovering was almost impossible.”

Despite finally deciding to speak out, the singer said she plans to “return to quietness” — although she hopes to be able to release more music one day.

“I know this much though, I owe it to myself to release a body of work someday, though I very much doubt I will ever be the person people once knew,” she said. “My music will be measured on the merit of its quality and this story will be something I experienced and not something that describes me.”