Duffy speaks about kidnapping ordeal in new blog post
Singer Duffy has published a lengthy blog post about the horrific ordeal in which she was drugged, kidnapped and raped, causing her to disappear from music and the public eye for many years. Late last night the singer posted a single black and white picture of herself to Instagram with a link to the blog post, titled The 5th House, which begins:
"It troubles me that this story contains sorrow, when so many need the opposite of that at this time. I can only hope that my words serve as a momentary distraction or maybe even some comfort that one can come out of darkness.
"...If you are reading this, I must warn you it contains information some may find upsetting. This story is not going anywhere, it will remain online, if you are not able to take on someone else’s suffering or the recounting of such, I recommend you do not read on.
"...What is also hard to explain is that, in hiding, in not talking, I was allowing the rape to become a companion. Me and it living in my being, I no longer wanted to feel that intimacy with it, a decade of that intimacy has been destructive. I had to set myself free. I have been hurt and it would have been dangerous to talk from that hurt place in the past, prior to feeling ready.
A post shared by @ duffy on Apr 5, 2020 at 1:32pm PDT
Duffy, then goes on to explain how she considered changing her name and disappearing completely, but finally realising that "I can’t keep hiding".
She then warns readers, "Please skip the next twenty lines if you do not want to read the exact account of the kidnapping."
She gives the following account:
"It was my birthday, I was drugged at a restaurant, 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. I was stuck with him for another day, he didn’t look at me, I was to walk behind him, I was somewhat conscious and withdrawn.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 could have been disposed of by him. I contemplated running away to the neighbouring city or town, as he slept, but had no cash and I was afraid he would call the police on me, for running away, and maybe they would track me down as a missing person. 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. I flew back with him, I stayed calm and as normal as someone could in a situation like that, and when I got home, I sat, dazed, like a zombie. I knew my life was in immediate danger, he made veiled confessions of wanting to kill me. With what little strength I had, my instinct was to then run, to run and find somewhere to live that he could not find.
"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.
"After it happened, someone I knew came to my house and saw me on my balcony staring into space, wrapped in a blanket. I cannot remember getting home. The person said I was yellow in colour and I was like a dead person. They were obviously frightened but did not want to interfere, they had never seen anything like it."
She ends the post by telling readers:
"I can now leave this decade behind. Where the past belongs. Hopefully no more “what happened to Duffy questions” [sic], now you know … and I am free."
You can read the post in full here.
If you are in need of advice, information or support relating to sexual assault visit Rape Crisis England and Wales or call (freephone) 0808 802 9999.
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