Singer Duffy speaks out after harrowing rape and kidnap

Welsh singer Duffy has revealed harrowing details of her kidnap and rape

The 35 year old took to Instagram to give an account of what happened when she was raped, drugged, and kidnapped for four weeks.

She said she wasn’t sure if there was “ever a right time” to open up with more details of her ordeal, and admitted that she had even explored changing her name, disappearing to foreign country “and maybe becoming a florist or something, so that I could put the past behind with a new life”.

In the account, which she posted a link to on Instagram, she also revealed that her rapist is still at large.

Duffy performing on stage at the Sydney Opera House in 2009 (Photo by Graham Denholm/Getty Images)

“My truth makes me no less lovable”

Duffy said the catalyst for her making details of her rape and kidnap public was a comment from a male friend.

She said he told her that “most men would run a mile if they knew you were raped.”

Duffy said that on hearing the comment, she “crumbled”, before realising that “the knowledge of my truth makes me no less lovable.”

Details of the ordeal

Prefacing her account, Duffy wrote “I must warn you it contains information some may find upsetting”.

She said the initial attack happened on her birthday.

“I was drugged at a restaurant,” she wrote, “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.

She said she was put in a hotel room where she was raped by her kidnapper.

“I remember the pain and trying to stay conscious in the room after it happened,” she wrote, “I could have been disposed of by him.”

She was forced to stay with him for another day, but contemplated running away while he slept.

But without money, she “was afraid he would call the police on me, for running away, and maybe they would track me down as a missing person.

“He made veiled confessions of wanting to kill me”

“I do not know how I had the strength to endure those days, I did feel the presence of something that helped me stay alive.”

When she flew back to the UK with her kidnapper, she said she knew her life was in danger.

“He made veiled confessions of wanting to kill me,” she wrote, “With what little strength I had, my instinct was to then run, to run and find somewhere to live that he could not find.

“Thereafter, it didn’t feel safe to go to the police,” she added.

If anything went wrong, “I would be dead, and he would have killed me.”

“Now I am free”

But in the years since, she said she has told two female police officers about what happened to her, adding, “it is on record.”

Having spent almost 10 years in self-imposed isolation, Duffy finished her instagram post by saying “I can now leave this decade behind.

“Hopefully no more “what happened to Duffy” questions,” she wrote, “now you know… and I am free.”