Welsh singer Duffy found fame through her soulful pop tunes in the early 2000s, but she dramatically disappeared from public life just two years later in 2011, despite winning a Grammy and multiple BRIT Awards.
Returning a decade later, she revealed details of a harrowing kidnapping that is set to be the topic of a new Disney + documentary featuring the very private popstar's side of the story.
While details of her life remain closely under wraps, the singer, whose real name is Aimee Ann Duffy, has spoken previously about her upbringing with her twin sister, Katy Ann Duffy, in Wales.
The star moved her sibling into her London flat in 2013 to help her cope with the pressures of fame; however, in 2020, she shared terrifying revelations on her social media platform that she had been held captive abroad, drugged and raped.
Humble beginnings
The pair of sisters, now 41, were born in the coastal town of Nefyn on the Llyn Peninsula on 23 June, 1984, to factory worker Joyce and storeman Allan Evans. They have an older sister named Kelly.
The Mercy singer's parents divorced when she was ten, following which she moved to Pembrokeshire, where she lived with her mum and two sisters. After a string of difficult circumstances, she separated from her siblings and went to live with her dad, back in Nefyn.
She told North Wales Live: "We were living with four stepbrothers and sisters and an uncle. After a few years, I decided I needed to find my own path in life and moved out – leaving all my friends, my sisters and my mum behind.
© Getty Images"You don’t make that sort of decision without knowing what you want to do with your life."
Speaking about her upbringing, she also revealed to The Times: "I was born in a very small community, no cinema, no clothes, no record shop, youth club or cinema, but life was simple and beautiful. It felt so safe.
"My grandma lived across the road, the ice-cream van came in the evening, it was wonderful. When you look back at your childhood, only the positive remains. Maybe I romanticise it - my sister has said I’m a very half-full sort of person, but I think that’s probably a better way to be."
Troublesome teenage years
Duffy's life was less than plain sailing as she entered her rebellious teenage years, during which she ran away from home and did everything from "body-piercing to going on 48-hour binge beach parties, to stealing someone’s boat at night and rowing it from one place to another when we were drunk, to jumping on a milk float for a lift home," according to the Mail.
Despite her antics, she completed her A-levels and began lectures at Chester University before dropping out and working as a waitress, penning some of her biggest hits during that time.
In 2007, she got her big break and signed a record deal, having previously appeared on the Welsh version of the X Factor, Wawffactor.
© Corbis via Getty ImagesKidnapped abroad
In 2020, the singer resurfaced on social media after a decade-long hiatus and, in a since-deleted post, explained how she had been attacked and kidnapped while abroad, but no one had known about the ordeal.
The post stated: "The truth is, and please trust me, I am okay and safe now. I was raped, drugged and held captive for some days. Of course, I survived."
© WireImageIt continued: "In the aftermath, I would not see someone, a physical soul, for sometimes weeks and weeks and weeks at a time, remaining alone. Rape stripped me of my human rights to experience a life with autonomy from fear. It has already stolen one-third of my life.
"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."
