Singer Duffy revealed that she had been “raped, drugged and held captive” in a Tuesday Instagram post.

“You can only imagine the amount of times I thought about writing this,” the 35-year-old Welsh singer, whose real name is Aimee Duffy, wrote. “The way I would write it, how I would feel thereafter. Well, not entirely sure why now is the right time, and what it is that feels exciting and liberating for me to talk. I cannot explain it. Many of you wonder what happened to me, where did I disappear to and why.”

In 2011, several years after her hit single “Mercy” from the album Rockferry, the singer essentially fell off public radar. “A journalist contacted me, he found a way to reach me and I told him everything this past summer. He was kind and it felt so amazing to finally speak,” she explained. “The truth is, and please trust me I am ok and safe now, I was raped and drugged and held captive over some days.”

The Grammy-award winner continued, “Of course I survived. The recovery took time. There’s no light way to say it. But I can tell you in the last decade, the thousands and thousands of days I committed to wanting to feel the sunshine in my heart again, the sun does now shine.”

She also addressed unspoken questions from fans: “You wonder why I did not choose to use my voice to express my pain?” she said. “I did not want to show the world the sadness in my eyes. I asked myself, how can I sing from the heart if it is broken? And slowly it unbroke.”

Duffy promised to share more information in a “spoken interview,” adding, “I have a sacred love and sincere appreciation for your kindness over the years. You have been friends. I want to thank you for that.” She also asked that fans respect the privacy of her family and to “support me to make this a positive experience.”

There is not an abundance of recent information on Duffy, who, after her follow-up album Endlessly, recorded three songs for the 2015 film Legend. In December, she posted a Facebook photo with the mysterious caption “2020,” prompting fans to beg, “Please come back” and to interpret it as a sign of an upcoming album.

On Tuesday, fans retreated to that Facebook post, writing, “You are a strong woman Duffy“ and “You were quite right to take as long as you needed, the most important thing is your wellbeing and health which should always come first.”





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