By Mark Gray
12:42pm PDT, Mar 31, 2024
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Four years after revealing she'd been drugged, raped, kidnapped and taken hostage in a foreign country, Grammy-winning singer Duffy is breaking her silence on social media.
On March 25, the "Mercy" singer shared an inspirational video about happiness from the Instagram account @thephilosophart.
"A little something to motivate the heart. Hope you are all doing well. Lots of love," the singer wrote alongside the video.
Keep reading to learn what the video said, then revisit the horrifying details of Duffy's kidnapping…
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In the video from the Instagram account @thephilosophart that Duffy shared on March 25 — her first social media activity in four years — a voice-over says, "You're going to realize it one day: that happiness was never about your job or your degree or being in a relationship. Happiness was never about following in the footsteps of all of those who came before you. It was never about being like the others. One day, you're going to see it: that happiness was always about the discovery, the hope, the listening to your heart and following it wherever it chose to go."
"Happiness was always about being kinder to yourself. It was always about embracing the person you were becoming. One day you will understand that happiness was always about learning how to live with yourself, that your happiness was never in the hands of others," the voice-over continues. "One day you'll realize that true happiness comes from within, and no external factors can define it. It was always about you. It was always about you."
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Back in 2020, Welsh singer Duffy revealed on Instagram that she had been drugged, raped and held captive in a foreign country.
"Many of you wonder what happened to me, where did I disappear to and why," she wrote in a since-deleted post. "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," she added.
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Several months after her initial disclosure, Duffy published an essay detailing what happened to her.
"It was my birthday, I was drugged at a restaurant, I was drugged then for four weeks and traveled to a foreign country," Duffy, then 35, wrote. "I can't remember getting on the plane and came round in the back of a traveling 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," she continued. "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," she added.
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In early 2020 — after she opened up about her ordeal — Duffy released the song "Something Beautiful." A few months later, she released another song: "River in the Sky."
Duffy released her first album, "Rockferry," in 2008. The album — which featured the international hit single "Mercy" — went on to win the Grammy for best pop vocal album in 2009.
Duffy released her sophomore album, "Endlessly," in 2010. She then took a lengthy hiatus from the music business. She was rarely seen in public over the course of the next decade.
