Her last musical release to date was in 2015 when she contributed several songs to the soundtrack of the film Legend – and then, nothing. No music, no gigs, no public social media presence whatsoever.
Until 2020, when the singer – real name Aimee Anne Duffy – opened a public Instagram account and offered a truly shocking explanation to a question that had by that point been the focus of some media speculation: Whatever happened to Duffy?
Duffy had one of the biggest hits in 2008, whatever happened to her? Photo / Getty Images
Duffy had one of the biggest hits in 2008, whatever happened to her? Photo / Getty Images
In a devastating post, she revealed she left the public eye after an ordeal in which she was drugged, raped and held captive “over some days”.
“Many of you wonder what happened to me, where did I disappear to and why. 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. The truth is, and please trust me I am okay and safe now, I was raped and drugged and held captive over some days,” she revealed.
She told fans the ordeal left her suicidal and she feared she would never recover. She kept the “dark secret” from everyone for 10 years.
Duffy went public in 2020 via written statements on her Instagram account and website but then retreated once more from the public eye – until now.
A now-40-year-old Duffy made a surprise appearance on social media today, appearing in a TikTok by dance music producers Emotion, who are teasing a new remix of her classic hit Mercy. After teasing in recent days that they had the singer herself on board for the rework, today they posted a video showing Duffy herself briefly lip-synching to the song. Incredibly, it’s the first time fans have laid eyes on her in an entire decade.
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Fans flocked to the comments to share their surprise and delight at a rare sighting of the star.
“Duffy! Where have you been?” one commented.
“Is this the real Duffy?” another asked.
“So good she’s back,” one fan wrote.
Duffy went into horrifying detail about her ordeal in a statement published online in April 2020, alleging she was abducted and taken to another country.
“It was my birthday, I was drugged at a restaurant, I was drugged then for four weeks and travelled to a foreign country,” she wrote.
“I can’t remember getting on the plane and came round in the back of a travelling vehicle. I was put into a hotel room and the perpetrator returned and raped me.”
Duffy alleged that she was later returned to her home and left to pick up the pieces of her life.
She said in her 2020 statement that she was “no longer ashamed that something deeply hurt me”. She added: “As dark as my story is, I do speak from my heart, for my life, and for the life of others, whom [sic] have suffered the same.”
“I can now leave this decade behind. Where the past belongs. Hopefully no more ‘what happened to Duffy questions’, now you know … and I am free.”