Welsh singer Duffy, who achieved international success with the 2008 hit “Mercy”, will speak publicly for the first time about the kidnapping and sexual assault she previously disclosed in a forthcoming documentary.
The project was announced at the Series Mania festival by Angela Jain, head of content at Disney+, during a keynote presentation. The feature-length documentary will be produced as a Hulu Original and will later be available through Disney+.
Documentary to examine her life and career
According to the announcement, the film will follow Duffy’s life from her upbringing in Wales to her rapid rise to global fame and her subsequent withdrawal from public life after the traumatic events she experienced.
Production on the documentary, which will be directed by Gil Calean, is expected to begin soon.
The film will include new access to the singer, archival material and interviews with members of her family, friends and collaborators in the music industry.
Angela Jain described the project as a “very powerful piece”, noting that Duffy has rarely spoken about what happened during that period apart from a social media statement several years ago.
“She has trusted us with her story, so we have a significant responsibility to handle it with care and sensitivity, because she is speaking about what happened to her for the first time,” Jain said.
Earlier revelations about the incident
In 2020, Duffy revealed in a social media post that she had stepped away from music in 2011 after being kidnapped and sexually assaulted.
She later published a 3,000-word account on her website describing the experience.
“It was my birthday. I was drugged in a restaurant, held drugged for four weeks and taken to a foreign country,” she wrote.
The perpetrator, whose identity she did not disclose, “made indirect confessions that he wanted to kill me”, she said.
Duffy also wrote that she initially felt unable to contact the police due to fears for her safety.
“I did not feel safe going to the police. I felt that if something went wrong I would be dead and he would have killed me,” she wrote.
She later reported the incident to authorities but said she had felt “frozen” since the experience.
At the time, she said she was sharing her story in order to move forward personally and did not rule out a possible return to music.
Source: Variety