Aaron Grech April 7th, 2020 - 12:03 AM
Welsh singer Duffy recently opened up on social media about being held hostage, drugged and raped, which contributed to her hiatus from the music industry during most of the 2010s. The performer has now gone at length to discuss the experience and her trauma she faced during and after the event in an internet statement, who’s link was shared to Instagram. Her full statement can be found here.
She explained that she was drugged at a restaurant, and for the following weeks after that before being taken out of the country against her will. She explained that the perpetrator sexually assaulted her in a hotel room, where she struggled to remain conscious after her attack. Eventually she escaped by fleeing, although she had no idea how she returned back to her home.
“I no longer wanted to feel that intimacy with it, a decade of that intimacy has been destructive. I had to set myself free,” she explained. “I have been hurt and it would have been dangerous to talk from that hurt place in the past, prior to feeling ready.”
The performer was quiet about this event for years, due to fears over being blackmailed by the perpetrator, which led her to relocate 5 times since the attack. She eventually opened up about it to a female police officer, after someone had threatened to go public with the story. She wants to identity of the person to be a matter between herself and the police.
She also gave thanks to Jo Whiley, who played Duffy’s first track in several years “Something Beautiful” on her BBC Radio program. Despite this the performer stated that she will retreat back into “quietness” for the time being.
“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,” she explained. “I thank Jo Whiley for letting me share a song on radio, during these times. Meant a lot to me.”
