This article contains details of sexual abuse.

Duffy has detailed her horrific ordeal of being drugged, raped and held captive.

Earlier this year, the Grammy-winning star – whose real name is Aimee Duffy – shared an Instagram post in which she explained her years-long absence from the music industry, revealing she’d been drugged, kidnapped and then sexually abused a decade earlier.

The singer has now shared an additional post on her website, revealing that she was drugged at a restaurant on her birthday a decade ago, before being held against her will first at her own home, and later being taken to a foreign 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 explained. “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. I remember the pain and trying to stay conscious in the room after it happened.”

She continued: “I was stuck with him for another day, he didn’t look at me, I was to walk behind him, I was somewhat conscious and withdrawn.

“I could have been disposed of by him.”

Following her ordeal, Duffy said she didn’t want to tell the police as she was concerned that “if anything went wrong, I would be dead, and he would have killed me”.

She added that she was sharing her story because we are living in “a hurting world”, saying: “I am no longer ashamed that something deeply hurt me, anymore. I believe that if you speak from the heart within you, the heart within others will answer.

“As dark as my story is, I do speak from my heart, for my life, and for the life of others, whom have suffered the same.

“I have no shame in telling you either I had spent almost ten years completely alone and it still burns my heart to write it. I owe it to myself to say it, I feel obliged to explain how challenging recovering truly was and to finally disclose it. I hope it comforts you to feel less ashamed if you feel alone.”

“I ask myself now, as I write this … what makes me feel more beautiful, more hopeful and more at peace?” she wrote. “So, if I do indeed press SEND and put this online, I hope it brings me the smile in my eyes, the light in my life, that has been absent for just so long.

“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.”

Last month, Duffy shared a new song – her first new material since 2015, when she contributed three songs to a film soundtrack – which was played on Radio 2.

While she chose not to release the track, titled Something Beautiful, officially, Duffy said she hoped people would hear it on the radio and that it would “lift spirits… during these troubling times”.

At the time, she said: “You might have read the words I wrote a few weeks back, I do feel freer.

“I tried to follow it up with a spoken interview but it is harder than I thought. I will follow up in writing soon.”

• Rape Crisis services for women and girls who have been raped or have experienced sexual violence – 0808 802 9999
• Survivors UK offers support for men and boys – 0203 598 3898