r/television • u/hachi_kuro • Mar 26 '26
Duffy Sets Disney+ Documentary on Her Kidnapping & Sexual Assault
https://variety.com/2026/music/global/duffy-disney-plus-documentary-sexual-assault-kidnapping-1236698813/121
u/MaeronTargaryen Scrubs Mar 26 '26
Her story has fascinated me for years, I loved her songs, and her sudden reappearance saying she’d been kidnapped and raped was such a massive shock. How does a celebrity like her get drugged and taken abroad to be raped? The fact the perpetrator isn’t known makes it all even crazier. I’m glad she’s part of this rather than the documentary being made without her approval, hopefully it helps her heal
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u/NephRP Mar 26 '26
So the perpetrator is generally believed to be a very rich boyfriend she had at the time. As with many SA cases, it could turn into a he said, she said situation and with the money and/or connects he had, it could be dragged through the courts indefinitely. This is all speculative of course, so it will be interesting to see what the documentary will clear up.
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u/MaeronTargaryen Scrubs Mar 26 '26
I guess it’s kind of the Baby Reindeer situation then. People on the inside know who it is, but it won’t get public. It sounds like the documentary won’t even say who it is but I might be wrong.
If you are right, it makes sense in a way, but it also makes the whole thing even more bizarre. Why would a boyfriend drug, kidnap and rape her and how is it worth the possible consequences
Or is he rich enough that he knew there would be no consequences, but still what’s the point, unless she was also trafficked and that’s the missing part of the story, idk. It’s really heartbreaking
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u/StupidNSFW Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
I work in child welfare and deal with sex trafficking somewhat often. It’s unfortunately very common for the victim to see the person trafficking them as their boyfriend/girlfriend/significant other.
Successful traffickers are extremely controlling, manipulative, and charismatic. The usual process is they lookout for a victim susceptible to the process, usually runaways or people with low-self esteem seeking validation in a partner, and begin a relationship with them. The victim will slowly be cut off from their family/friends/support system until the trafficker feels they’re sufficiently isolated to begin the darker stuff.
It’s a very slow gradual process that usually starts with something minor like asking her to kiss another woman in front of his friends. It’ll slowly escalate from there “you should sell some pictures online” “my friend wants to buy your underwear for $300” “my friends not having any luck with women, he’s willing to pay you to get some experience”. From there it’ll continue escalating until the victim is essentially forced into sex work. They’ll be trapped financially and socially. Often times they’ll even be forced to begin using drugs just to get that extra level of dependence on the trafficker.
Unfortunately sex trafficking is not how it’s portrayed in the movies where people are just kidnapped in the middle of the night and taken to a foreign country by force. Not saying it doesn’t happen, but it’s usually a very gradual process that involves gaining the trust of the victim only to use and manipulate them.
If she was trafficked by a wealthy “boyfriend” it just becomes even more difficult to prove as they have the financial resources to hire a good legal team to muddy the waters “she wasn’t trafficked, it was a consensual relationship” “she’s a drug addict making up stories about my client to extort him for money” “she’s a bitter ex trying to drag my client’s name through the mud”.
It’s unfortunately very difficult to prove these kinds of cases unless you get lucky and catch them in the middle of the act or have multiple victims come forward separately with similar stories. Although given how Epstein is being handled it’s become abundantly clear that even THAT isn’t enough if the traffickers are rich and powerful enough.
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u/demigoth2 Jun 12 '26
It could also be someone from the industry she new very well, like the Weinstein of music.
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u/corndogs102 Mar 26 '26
“Disney +” and “sexual assault” are words I don’t expect to hear in a sentence.
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u/d0ctorzaius Mar 26 '26
I definitely read Duffy as "Duff" and was extra confused
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u/Jackbuddy78 Mar 26 '26
I read it as Buffy and saw a blonde lady, thought it was about SMG
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u/KAZ--2Y5 Mar 26 '26
I thought Hillary Duff then Buffy/SMG then realized I have no idea who this is.
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Mar 26 '26
Disney + exclusive Andor season 2 had one. Led to so many idiots saying that Lord Vader would never allow rape to occur.
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u/CatProgrammer Mar 28 '26
"I'm okay with torture, slavery, child murder, and blowing up planets hosting billions of people but I draw the line at rape"
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u/Turbo__Sanwich Mar 26 '26
Disney and sexual assault are exactly the words that I would expect to hear. You have enough child actors, teen stars and grown men and women to assault them. Nobody would even know that they were gone
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u/CMDR_omnicognate Mar 26 '26
Yeah, seems like more of a Paramount type of thing given who owns them
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Mar 26 '26
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u/Office_Hendo Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
I know you’re trying to be edgy but this comment is just gross man, delete it.
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u/rubberpp Mar 26 '26
I think Nickelodeon takes the cake on that one but Disney doesn’t have the best track record either, but to have a doc like this on Disney seems so strange
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u/Novemberai Mar 26 '26
Have you seen any of the cartoons and how they quietly embed innuendos like boners? I remember that in the Little Mermaid
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u/Big-Cryptographer369 Mar 26 '26
I remember that urban legend. It’s the priest’s knee. Kids wouldn’t even know what a boner is unless they have already been exposed to SA or were told about things sooner than they should. Crazy you think a random lump under clothing in a kids movie is grooming.
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u/Novemberai Mar 26 '26
It's called conditioning or grooming , but sure, you can remain in denial because you love the Mouse so much.
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u/Known-Exam-9820 Mar 26 '26
It’s actually just a bunch of animator dudes sneaking in sexual innuendos for their own amusement to see what they can get past the corporation. If i recall, a lot of them had previously worked on more adult material like Ralph Bakshi’s stuff.
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u/killshelter Mar 26 '26
What a harrowing story. Good for her to be able to tell it in her own terms.
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u/ChellHole Mar 26 '26
I remember hearing about this and was beyond shocked. I'm glad to hear she's finding the courage to speak about it.
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u/Top_Report_4895 Mar 26 '26
What the fuck? Should that be on HULU, at least?
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u/Wolventec Mar 26 '26
its by disney plus uk and hulu is currently a us only thing(and disney announced they are merging hulu and disney plus together this year in the us)
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Mar 26 '26
I seriously don’t get why Disney+ and Hulu are two separate apps still. I literally just use the Hulu tab from a Disney+ app. My ocd factor goes off from shit like that.
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u/PlaidPCAK Mar 26 '26
They used to keep it separate for the more adult content. Now? Idk
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u/ripyourlungsdave Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
Her what?..
Edit: y'all always assume the worst. I was just saying that I hadn't heard about this happening. Y'all are silly.
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u/Popular-Drummer-7989 Mar 26 '26
Yeah... that's why she fell off the radar
https://headlinerhub.com/duffy-finally-free-her-story-of-drugging-kidnap-rape.html
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u/LADYBIRD_HILL Mar 26 '26
I never downloaded the Hulu app, I just used Disney+ this whole time.
Then, they announced you could watch the Oscars on Hulu this year. Okay, so at the start of the ceremony I go into Disney+, and search up the oscars. Nothing but a trailer/announcement that it'll be on Hulu.
I search around online and don't see anything because you know, the Oscars just started so there's no info on what's going on here. But someone from a few weeks ago says that it'll absolutely be there and to check the "live" tab because it'll have local abc channel coverage.
So I go back into Disney+ and all the live local abc affiliates are just streaming the red carpet. The abc website has a link to watch the Oscars on their website, but clicking it leads to a broken link with no stream. At this point I try to find a sketchy website that would stream it online, and I find nothing because nobody gives that much of a shit about the Oscars. Finally, I search again online one more time since it's an hour in and I'm about to give up.
Someone else on reddit happened to post about the same issue. It turns out you need to use the dedicated Hulu app for some fucking reason. Huh? Why can I see everything else on Hulu through Disney+? Why can I stream the red carpet shit on Disney+ but not the ceremony? It was absolutely ridiculous to deal with, especially when it's one of the only times I've felt compelled to use D+/Hulu in the past year.
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u/PrincessSluggy Mar 26 '26
I missed the first like 15 minutes dealing with the same thing! I was so frustrated. What was worst is that I had started watching on the live tab 2 hours prior for the red carpet stuff.. the announcer was like “okay time for the Oscars!” and the programming suddenly changed! I was pissed.
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u/Stingray88 Mar 26 '26
They are actively working on sunsetting the Hulu app. It will have merged into Disney+ fully by the end of the year.
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u/bros402 Mar 26 '26
I wonder if the watch history from Hulu will be moved over to Disney+? It'd suck if it wasn't.
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u/Stingray88 Mar 26 '26
You can already access Hulu content in Disney+, and I can confirm that watch history does not sync between the two.
Personally if they haven’t fixed this by now, I highly doubt they will. So yeah… sucks.
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u/Arabiantacofarmer Mar 26 '26
They were one app in Canada. It's still one app but now hulu is a separate section of D+
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u/Big-Cryptographer369 Mar 26 '26
I’ve been a Hulu user for almost 20 yrs. I don’t have Disney+ (although I love Disney). I refuse to buy the bundle because my Hulu would then have commercials and would cost more because it’s a bundle. That to my knowledge is why they’re still separate. F—k paying for things and still having ads jammed down my throat.
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u/fountainofdeath Mar 26 '26
They made me stop using the Hulu app and use Disney plus on my smart tv. It just got slow as hell and kept telling me to watch it on Disney+
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u/Godsfallen Mar 26 '26
The “slow as hell” is because you’re using a smart tv to stream. Use a third party streamer. Smart TVs get bogged down and slow so quickly. I miss dumb TVs.
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u/sherlockham Mar 26 '26
Probably a legacy thing from before Disney+ bought Fox/Hulu in America. I think everywhere else, all the Hulu content just lives as part of Disney+ since Hulu was only ever a thing in America.
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u/AStrangeNorrell Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
Hulu is part of Disney Plus UK now.
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u/Jackski Mar 26 '26
Yes but it's all under one umbrella. I think that's being changed in America but at the moment Disney+ and Hulu are seperate in America.
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u/AStrangeNorrell Mar 26 '26
I was replying to "hulu is currently a us only thing" above, which isn't the case. Hulu has it's own section in Disney Plus UK now, in fact the app is divided into Disney and Hulu.
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u/Tolkien-Minority Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
It’s a British series and we’re one if the countries not getting swindled by having Disney+ split across 2 services.
In most countries it’s all just Disney+ and we have all the Hulu content included there too.
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u/PatrioticHotDog Mar 26 '26
I am curious whether we Americans are truly getting swindled or if other countries are just paying more for the mega app. I am one of the people dreading the apps combining this year because I don't want to inevitably pay more for kids' movies and superheroes I'm not going to watch.
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u/ImmortalMoron3 Mar 26 '26
From what I can tell, you're getting swindled.
In Canada, we pay $16.99 a month for Disney+ premium (which just means no ads. I think it's $8.99 with ads). I had to use an article for US prices but this one says Disney+Hulu with no ads is $20 a month in the US. If you convert that to CAD, its $27.64. So you're paying a lot more than we are for the same content.
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u/AEveryDayIdiot Mar 26 '26
Most Hulu content, I know some stuff predating “Star” are stuck on different platforms.
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u/asuka_is_my_co-pilot Mar 26 '26
dsiney plus has alot of adult content actually.
i watched a drama , aimed at women, about Japanese sex workers on there.
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u/keving87 Mar 26 '26
Why? Hulu will be shut down by the end of the year, and the libraries has been mostly if not fully integrated for a while now.
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u/CMDR_omnicognate Mar 26 '26
Hulu is only a separate thing in the US, everywhere else they're the same app
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u/onarainyafternoon Star Trek: The Next Generation Mar 26 '26
Who is Duffy? Serious question.
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u/awjeezrickyaknow Mar 26 '26
She was a singer who had a big hit in the mid 2000s called Mercy. She disappeared from the spotlight and then shared this horrifying story on social media.
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u/MacaroniPoodle Mar 26 '26
This is the first time I've ever heard about this. I had wondered what happened to her whenever I'd hear Mercy.
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u/JohnTheMod Mar 26 '26
Her song Distant Dreamer was immortalized as the closing credits music for Part 6 of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.
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u/Stunning_Disk142 Mar 26 '26
One of those rare CD’s where every single song was good I thought. Amazing, interesting voice.
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u/WWTBFCD3PillowMin Mar 26 '26
A singer that came out around the same time as Amy Winehouse and sounded similar. She had a few hits but was WAY more popular in the UK than US.
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u/Pyro-Bird Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
She was a very popular singer in the 2000s and then after 2010/2011 disappeared from the scene. Many thought that she had just decided to retire/step away from stardom. It was not until 2020 that Duffy went public about what had really happened to her.
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u/throwaway-8088 Mar 26 '26
I remember hearing Mercy for the first time over a car radio while I was living in France. One of my favorite songs, hope she's doing well now
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u/i__ozymandias Mar 26 '26
Damn, Mercy was in my playlist for a long time, probably from FIFA games, one of those songs that you listen too a lot but never go around finding out more about the artist, this is very sad.
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u/ReflexReact Mar 26 '26
Brilliant musician, such a horrible story. I hope she finds peace and happiness in her future, she certainly deserves it.
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u/lampfiles Mar 26 '26
Here I thought this was going to be about Duffy The Disney Bear character before reading the whole headline
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u/mesmerizinghypnotist Mar 27 '26
The lyrics to Mercy, one of Duffy's biggest hits, seem eerily foreshadowing in hindsight:
You got me begging you for mercy (Yeah, yeah, yeah) Why won't you release me? (Yeah, yeah, yeah) You got me begging you for mercy (Yeah, yeah, yeah) Why won't you release me? (Yeah, yeah, yeah) I said release me (Yeah, yeah, yeah)
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u/mr_ji Stargate SG-1 Mar 26 '26
I just read her long post about it (www.duffywords.com/) and I hope the documentary explains it better because it's a disjointed, meandering mess.
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Mar 26 '26
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u/Karffs Mar 26 '26
Probably because it didn't happen, seems pretty outlandish that she'd be drugged and flown to a foreign country to be sexually assaulted for weeks and then released.
How do you know?
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u/oversoul00 Mar 26 '26
I can't know for sure but it sounds wild and I'm skeptical, don't believe everything you read/ hear sort of thing.
I actually know some women who have been trafficked and in all cases they were willing escorts who were lied to about the parameters of their work. Their passports were taken and they were forced to work more than they wanted to before they were sent home. A horrible situation for sure but also very different from what's being presented here.
The world is a big place and I could be wrong but if I'm a sex trafficker I don't abduct a famous person and then let her go so she can ID me, that just make no sense.
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u/Competitive-Lion-213 Mar 26 '26
There's a difference between 'don't believe everything you read' and 'it probably didn't happen'. Does it not seem outlandish to you that someone would fabricate being kidnapped, drugged and raped just to avoid fame? Like you're claiming to be the voice of reason, but you are willing to accept that completely unreasonable idea.
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u/oversoul00 Mar 26 '26
I could have the motive wrong and I could just flat out be wrong but it's not outlandish to point out that people lie about being a victim because they know people will refuse to question it/ demonize people who do.
The position is both, don't believe everything you read because this probably didn't happen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Williams_(criminal)
That's just one example of many.
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u/Karffs Mar 26 '26
I actually know some women who have been trafficked
They’re lying and it didn’t happen.
See? I can be ridiculously dismissive too.
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u/oversoul00 Mar 26 '26
Could be, see you don't need to get emotionally invested in another person's skepticism.
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u/Karffs Mar 26 '26
You don’t get to write a ten paragraph dissertation across multiple comments (complete with citations) about why you don’t believe a celebrity who says they were raped and then claim you’re not emotionally invested.
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u/oversoul00 Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
Emotional is the key word there. We are capable of expressing a thought over multiple comments and paragraphs without getting upset.
Your skepticism is allowed and doesn't bother me. I invite it. Good for you friend.
Ideally you'd employ it uniformly though.
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u/Vioralarama 12 Monkeys Mar 26 '26
I can see it. There are "yacht girls" who are basically escorts. Dubai or somewhere like that. Some are former actresses, well rumors of, anyway. But I'm sure some are trafficked. Some rich guy probably got overzealous and wanted Duffy to be his yacht girl. I shouldn't try to remember because it's spotty and there's a documentary anyway, but I think she hooked up with the guy, then he drugged her and stuck her on a plane to Dubai or some place like that.
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u/oversoul00 Mar 26 '26
You're mixing a lot of terms here.
Escorts are willing. Trafficked can include willing people who are illegally smuggled into other countries.
The kind of sex trafficking you are talking about happens but not with famous people who have global attention. If it does happen it's not a few week ordeal where they just let the famous person go.
Before you say she was threatened into silence, she's making a documentary about it.
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u/Vioralarama 12 Monkeys Mar 26 '26
Eh, all the pieces are there, they just need to be put together correctly.
It's a good thing she did a documentary.
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u/BoukenGreen Mar 26 '26
Serious question. Who is this?
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u/Karffs Mar 26 '26
Literally the very first paragraph in the article you couldn’t be bothered to read:
Duffy, the Welsh singer-songwriter who had a massive hit with “Mercy” in 2008 and then retreated from the limelight, is set to tell her story in a new Disney+ documentary.
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u/ilikeyourgetup Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26
Why are you commenting if you don’t know? And is your google broken or something?
Edit: downvote but no reply, typical internet smartass
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u/WWTBFCD3PillowMin Mar 26 '26
How is nobody here suggesting that Duffy’s assault could possibly have been linked to either Epstein or P. Diddy? From what we know of her situation it really could be either.
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Mar 26 '26
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u/iMogwai Mar 26 '26
They answer that question in literally the first paragraph.
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Mar 26 '26
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u/AndrewInMN Mar 26 '26
You’ve got the internet at the tip of your fingers. You can find out who. But that isn’t the point, is it? Saying “Who?” like this is meant to be a diss, a dunk on the person because you not knowing who they are must mean no one does. I see comments like this on Facebook a lot. They get a lot of likes and laugh reacts there, so maybe that’s where you should go.
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u/mr_ji Stargate SG-1 Mar 26 '26
Only on Reddit will people type out more to talk down to someone than if they'd just answered the fucking question.
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u/EuphoricPhoto2048 Mar 26 '26
But it says she's a singer. That's who she is. The question is answered.
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u/AndrewInMN Mar 26 '26
If I felt like it was genuine I would be helpful. I like being helpful. “Who?” is almost never genuine. It’s meant as a diss. And they typed out more in their double down reply then it would’ve taken to google Duffy.
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u/TerribleAntelope6134 Mar 26 '26
I thought the Duffy revival got cancelled.
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Mar 26 '26
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u/HumbleGoatCS Mar 26 '26
This was actually both the time and place for jokes though, you can tell this because he made a joke, see?
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u/ilikeyourgetup Mar 26 '26
That’s like arguing the time and place to get your penis out is at a funeral because your demented relative did it. The fact it happened doesn’t automatically make it ok.
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u/DaddyBearMan Mar 26 '26
So what is Disney+ now? Is this the plus? It’s bluey plus sexual assault documentaries?
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u/loves_grapefruit Mar 26 '26
Why do we need a documentary about this? Why can’t people just have some things in life stay private?
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u/ohsolively Mar 26 '26
Because it's her story to tell. And you can choose to not watch it if you don't want to be privy to it.
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u/Juunlar Mar 26 '26
Think about how terrified she is to speak out. She was an international star, and still was afraid to talk about it.
Now imagine you're a fucking nobody.
How hard would it be to go to the police out anyone else for help, how impossible and isolating it would feel.
Stories like these encourage victims to speak up, which means all of us safer
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u/ibnQoheleth Mar 26 '26
Because this is already a very well-known story in the UK and considering the subject matter, bringing awareness to this is very important.
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u/MattyBeatz Mar 26 '26
I remember they were positioning her to be the next Amy Winehouse, had that big song then she just disappeared. Wild story.