LUCY Spraggan used drugs and alcohol to cope after she was raped during X Factor filming.
The singer has praised fellow contestant and friend Rylan Clark for supporting her through the horrific ordeal.
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Lucy, who was just 20 at the time, has said that she was raped by a hotel porter during production of the singing competition.
She has said that she felt “let down” by ITV after the harrowing ordeal in 2012.
In her new memoir, Process: Finding My Way Through, Lucy said the rape took place after a night celebrating Rylan Clark’s 25th birthday at the swanky Mayfair nightclub Mahiki.
Lucy said that it was “inappropriate” for anyone, including contestants, to be drunk.
She told the Guardian: “How can you fulfil your duty of care when free alcohol is involved?”
The young star passed out and was escorted back to the hotel by a member of the production team, before the hotel porter offered to escort her to her room.
As he left, the porter flipped the security latch on her door to prevent it locking behind them.
Some time later, Rylan checked in on an unconscious Lucy and made sure her door was locked when he left.
This meant when the porter later returned to Lucy’s room in order to attack her, he had to use a traceable keycard.
Speaking on Rylan’s podcast Ry-Union in December last year, before the release of her book, she said: “Everyone has a bit of trauma in their life, whether it’s later, whether it’s earlier, and sometimes it can just stunt you.
“And it did for me, coming off the show I probably spent six or seven years stunted, not as an artist, I was touring the whole time, but as a person.
“I used drugs and alcohol to escape myself and it wasn’t until I got rid of both of those things it was like ‘oh the reason I do this is because I don’t know who I am’ and the biggest part of my whole journey as a person is learning who I am.”
Lucy praised Rylan for his friendship and unwavering support as she came to terms with what happened to her.
“In the last Couple of years I’ve been dealing with a lot of stuff I didn’t really want to think about, and I think how supportive you were, and how young you were. You were a kid as well, and I’m so proud of you,” she told him.
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