Duffy reveals harrowing account of four-week abduction and rape ordeal

Warning: Some readers may find details of this article upsetting

Duffy has shared her account of the terrifying ordeal that saw her drugged at a restaurant, raped and held captive.

In a written account on a website called duffywords.com, the singer opened up about her experience, which prompted her to vanish from the spotlight after releasing her second record in 2010.

“It troubles me that this story contains sorrow, when so many need the opposite of that at this time,” the account begins.

“I can only hope that my words serve as a momentary distraction or maybe even some comfort that one can come out of darkness.”

She said her ordeal began after she was drugged in a restaurant on her birthday, following which she was taken 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.”

Duffy added: “ I was stuck with him for another day, he didn’t look at me, I was to walk behind him, I was somewhat conscious and withdrawn.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 contemplated running away to the neighbouring city or town, as he slept, but had no cash.”

The singer said she “knew” her life was in “immediate danger” after flying home to the UK because the perpetrator hinted he would kill her.

“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.”

Duffy said she was ‘drugged’ and taken to a foreign country where she was raped by an unknown perpetrator (Victor Fraile/Getty Images)

Duffy also revealed she was drugged in her own home, but does not know whether she was raped there.

She said she was revealing details for the first time because she is “tired of hiding” and of “allowing the rape to become a companion”.

She said her mental health was seriously affected by the ordeal and that someone threatened to “out” her story, which forced her to tell the police.

“I would not see someone, a physical soul, for sometimes weeks and weeks and weeks at a time, remaining alone,” she said.

“I would take off my pyjamas and throw them in the fire and put on another set. My hair would get so knotted from not brushing it, as I grieved, I cut it all off.

“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”

In the post, the link of which she posted on her Instagram account, she wrote: “I just have to be strong and disclose it and face all my fears head on. I can now leave this decade behind. Where the past belongs. Hopefully no more ‘what happened to Duffy questions’, now you know … and I am free.”

If you’ve been raped or sexually assaulted, you can contact your nearest Rape Crisis organisation for specialist, independent and confidential support: www.rapecrisis.org.uk.