The 'Mercy' hitmaker shocks her fans when she says she went into hiding because she was healing after being sexually assaulted and held against her will.

• Feb 26, 2020

AceShowbiz - Duffy opened up why she suddenly went M.I.A. The 35-year-old Welsh singer/songwriter said she was dealing with trauma after being held captive and sexually assaulted. She revealed the horrifying ordeal in her first 2020 Instagram post.

"Many of you wonder what happened to me, where did I disappear to and why," the "Mercy" hitmaker wrote. "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."

Even writing her story on Instagram was a struggle for her. "You can only imagine the amount of times I thought about writing this," she explained. "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."

She didn't name her abuser but she hinted at revealing more in her interview. "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."

The star finally concluded with a plea, "Please respect this is a gentle move for me to make, for myself, and I do not want any intrusion to my family. Please support me to make this a positive experience."

Duffy released her last album "Endlessly" in 2010, two years after she dropped her debut "Rockferry" which topped music charts and earned her multiple awards.