Duffy, the distinctive Welsh singer who rose to fame with the 2008 album Rockferry and its globally successful lead single "Mercy," wrote on Instagram earlier that she was "raped and drugged and held captive over some days" by an unspecified person. Though she said that she's safe now, she said that the recovery took "thousands and thousands of days" and accounted for her near-complete absence from the spotlight over the past decade:
"The truth is, and please trust me I am ok and safe now, I was raped and drugged and held captive over some days. 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. You wonder why I did not choose to use my voice to express my pain? 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. In the following weeks I will be posting a spoken interview. If you have any questions I would like to answer them, in the spoken interview, if I can. 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."
In the post, Duffy added that she will explain more in a forthcoming interview, writing that a journalist contacted her last summer and "it felt so amazing to finally speak." Her last album, Endlessly, was released in 2010. Read her entire statement below.