{"id":474920,"date":"2026-06-13T05:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T05:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/474920\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T05:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T05:39:08","slug":"singer-duffy-seen-in-public-for-first-time-in-years-following-abduction-and-rape-ordeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/474920\/","title":{"rendered":"Singer Duffy seen in public for first time in years following abduction and rape ordeal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"xRCtHSZoMFoDBmw\" style=\"display:none\">In 2020, she opened up about the terrifying time that led to her disappearing from the public eye for more than a decade.<\/p>\n<p class=\"xRCtHSZoMFoDBmw\" style=\"display:none\">Writing on her website, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/entertainment\/duffy-reveals-harrowing-details-of-when-she-was-held-captive\/XUJIJVH5COSS7YZALB5DIAGRII\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/entertainment\/duffy-reveals-harrowing-details-of-when-she-was-held-captive\/XUJIJVH5COSS7YZALB5DIAGRII\/\">Duffy told fans she was abducted while she was celebrating her birthday at a restaurant<\/a>. The singer recounted how she was drugged and taken to a foreign country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"xRCtHSZoMFoDBmw\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cIt was my birthday, I was drugged at a restaurant, I was drugged then for four weeks and travelled to a foreign country,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"xRCtHSZoMFoDBmw\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI can\u2019t remember getting on the plane and came round in the back of a travelling vehicle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"xRCtHSZoMFoDBmw\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI was put into a hotel room and the perpetrator returned and raped me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"xRCtHSZoMFoDBmw\" style=\"display:none\">The Grammy-winning singer says the ordeal left her traumatised and suicidal and she withdrew from public life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"xRCtHSZoMFoDBmw\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cIn the aftermath, I would not see someone, a physical soul, for sometimes weeks and weeks at a time, remaining alone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"xRCtHSZoMFoDBmw\" style=\"display:none\">Last year, she appeared on social media for the first time in years, in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/entertainment\/singer-duffy-seen-for-first-time-in-a-decade-after-harrowing-ordeal\/RA6RUNIELNEGXB7HPOBTNF4CFQ\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/entertainment\/singer-duffy-seen-for-first-time-in-a-decade-after-harrowing-ordeal\/RA6RUNIELNEGXB7HPOBTNF4CFQ\/\">a TikTok video by dance music producers Emotion teasing a remix of Duffy\u2019s hit song Mercy<\/a>, but she had not been seen in public in more than a decade.<\/p>\n<p class=\"xRCtHSZoMFoDBmw\" style=\"display:none\">She recently posted a photo of herself in a music studio, captioned: \u201cIf only I could find the right words to explain how much I\u2019ve missed you all. Working on coming back to you.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"xRCtHSZoMFoDBmw\" style=\"display:none\">Fans were delighted with the news of Duffy\u2019s imminent return to the spotlight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"xRCtHSZoMFoDBmw\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI\u2019ve been waiting for this day for 15 years,\u201d one follower said, while others described it as \u201cthe best news in years\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2020, she opened up about the terrifying time that led to her disappearing from the public eye&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[169244,109989,1443,74,95,1558,682,111515,107887,156,1888,5504,2082,78,130,111,139,69,10521,2833,3109,34458,184409,7812,4625,4918,9636,131,107,2044,135157,1530],"class_list":["post-474920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-abducted","tag-abduction","tag-about","tag-after","tag-and","tag-been","tag-being","tag-drugged","tag-duffy","tag-entertainment","tag-first","tag-following","tag-for","tag-in","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-opening","tag-ordeal","tag-public","tag-rape","tag-raped","tag-seen","tag-singer","tag-soul","tag-spotted","tag-than","tag-then","tag-time","tag-welsh","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}