Duffy shares details of kidnap, says it's to help others who "have suffered the same"

Yesterday (5 April), Duffy uploaded a lengthy post to a blog titled duffywords.com to share details of her terrifying experience.

Back in February, the singer/songwriter revealed in an Instagram post that she was "raped and drugged and held captive over some days". Her new blog post goes into more detail, revealing she was initially drugged at a restaurant on her birthday. She adds, "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."

She goes on to write that she wanted to run away, but the fear of being tracked down stopped her. Duffy adds that she was also drugged at her own home, "The perpetrator drugged me in my own home in the four weeks, 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. 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."

On why it's taken her a long time to speak of the events, Duffy writes, "it didn’t feel safe to go to the police. 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. I have told two female police officers, during different threatening incidents in the past decade, it is on record."

She also reveals that she was blackmailed by someone trying to expose her story before she was ready to tell it, "Once someone threatened to ‘out' my story and I had to tell a female police officer what information the person held about me, and why the blackmail was so frightening. The second incident was when three men tried to enter my house as intruders, I told the second female officer about the rape then also. The identity of the rapist should be only handled by the police, and that is between me and them."

Duffy thanks her psychologist, after revealing she was the "first person I ever told", "I have no idea how I was so lucky to find her all those years ago, her beautiful blue eyes, pink sofa, huge library, amazing brain and skill. Without her I may not have made it through. 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."

As to why she chose to share the details, Duffy adds, "I am sharing this because we are living in a hurting world and 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 also reveals her family "were just too far away", and writes, "the toll of me hiding, this last decade, also meant I was estranged from all. What happened was not only a betrayal to me, to my life, a violence that nearly killed me, it stole a lot from other people too. I was just not the same person for so long. Rape is like living murder, you are alive, but dead. All I can say is it took an extremely long time, sometimes feeling never ending, to reclaim the shattered pieces of me."

Duffy explains that the ordeal resulted her moving house multiple times, "I moved five times in the immediate three years after, never feeling safe from the rapist, I was on the run for so long. I found somewhere to live, the 5th house, it was not as confined as the other houses, where I grieved silently, in townhouses or apartments. This place I would spend solitary years to find the stability to recover, I had stopped running and relocating. I felt he could not find me in the 5th house, I felt safe. I feel safe now."

Before wrapping up her post, Duffy mentions her music career, writing, "I also won’t be doing any more unannounced statements on this. As liberating it’s been to finally speak and to finally sing, albeit on radio, I will now return to quietness. I thank Jo Whiley for letting me share a song on radio, during these times. Meant a lot to me. 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. 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."