Inside Duffys £5 Million Home Retreat

It's the question all of Duffy's fans have been asking since she suddenly disappeared from the limelight in 2011: What is she doing now?

For 15 years, the Welsh singer has been living as a recluse and has rarely been spotted out and about.

But The Mail on Sunday can reveal that until very recently, Duffy was living in a stunning mansion in Weybridge, an affluent town in Surrey.

Listed for sale in 2024 at £7.5million, the hideaway finally sold last summer for £5.3million at a Sotheby's auction.

And after years away from the public eye, Duffy is poised for a major comeback – with streaming giant Disney+ set to release a documentary about the singer. 

She has also signed with music management company TaP – the home of US star – in the hope of releasing new tracks.

Duffy, 41, who won three Brits and a Grammy award in 2009, disappeared from public view in 2011 following her global hits Mercy and Warwick Avenue.

She then stunned fans in 2020 with the revelation that she had suffered a series of horrifying crimes, including being kidnapped, drugged and raped.

Duffy's 4,000 sq ft former hideaway in Weybridge boasts eight bedrooms, five bathrooms and is decorated in a minimalist style and painted almost entirely in white.

It features marble fireplaces, chandeliers above four-poster beds and has formal gardens, fountains and a rose garden.

The star, who changed her name from Aimee Duffy to Duffy Jones in 2013, also had a 12ft fence and CCTV to protect her.

Weybridge has been a popular enclave for celebrities, with Sir Tom Jones, Ringo Starr and Sir Elton John owning homes there in the past.

Duffy has performed an extraordinary feat to remain under the radar, with neighbours oblivious that a popstar had been living in their midst. 

But it is believed she now looks very different and her new management is using black-and-white photographs taken in her heyday.

When Duffy revealed her ordeal, she told fans that 'utterly no one' knew about the assault and captivity, which had left her suicidal.

She said: '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.'