After disappearing from the public eye for the majority of the 2010s, Welsh pop singer Duffy revealed that she had taken a break from recording and performing due to ongoing trauma related to her experience as a sexual assault survivor.
At the time, the artist born Aimee Anne Duffy revealed that she had been drugged, raped and held captive — now, she has detailed the gruesome experience in a lengthy essay titled "The 5th House."
"I can only hope that my words serve as a momentary distraction or maybe even some comfort that one can come out of darkness," she wrote on her website. "I could have decided to not release further words during these times, I don't think there is ever a right time, since promising to follow up in due course."
In the essay, Duffy tells the story of how she was drugged at a restaurant on her birthday many years ago, how she was subsequently taken to a foreign country, held captive and raped multiple times by an unnamed man.
You can read the full account over at Duffy Words, but be warned that the story comes with a heavy content warning for sexual assault and kidnapping.
Additionally, the singer explained how her experience has affected her music, writing that she wishes to make new work, but that she fears her experience as a survivor may define her artistic output going forward. Having released her first new song last month after years in obscurity, a track titled "Something Beautiful," Duffy also thanked BBC's Jo Whiley for sharing the demo with radio listeners at her request.
"I owe it to myself to release a body of work someday," she wrote. "Though I very much doubt I will ever be the person people once knew. My music will be measured on the merit of its quality and this story will be something I experienced and not something that describes me."
She continued: "Deep down I do know it would have been a shame and done such an immense disservice, to my existence, to just delete myself and forget what I had experienced in music publicly."
At the time, the artist born Aimee Anne Duffy revealed that she had been drugged, raped and held captive — now, she has detailed the gruesome experience in a lengthy essay titled "The 5th House."
"I can only hope that my words serve as a momentary distraction or maybe even some comfort that one can come out of darkness," she wrote on her website. "I could have decided to not release further words during these times, I don't think there is ever a right time, since promising to follow up in due course."
In the essay, Duffy tells the story of how she was drugged at a restaurant on her birthday many years ago, how she was subsequently taken to a foreign country, held captive and raped multiple times by an unnamed man.
You can read the full account over at Duffy Words, but be warned that the story comes with a heavy content warning for sexual assault and kidnapping.
Additionally, the singer explained how her experience has affected her music, writing that she wishes to make new work, but that she fears her experience as a survivor may define her artistic output going forward. Having released her first new song last month after years in obscurity, a track titled "Something Beautiful," Duffy also thanked BBC's Jo Whiley for sharing the demo with radio listeners at her request.
"I owe it to myself to release a body of work someday," she wrote. "Though I very much doubt I will ever be the person people once knew. My music will be measured on the merit of its quality and this story will be something I experienced and not something that describes me."
She continued: "Deep down I do know it would have been a shame and done such an immense disservice, to my existence, to just delete myself and forget what I had experienced in music publicly."