X Factor star Lucy Spraggan has revealed she was sexually attacked during her time filming on the show.
Lucy, 31, was a contestant on the 2012 series of the ITV singing competition. The singer-songwriter details the devastating impact the assault has had on her life in memoir Process: Finding My Way Through.
She said she was raped by a hotel porter following celebrations for Rylan Clark’s birthday at a West End nightclub. Lucy writes X Factor crew also attended the night out for her fellow contestant’s party.
Lucy told The Guardian: “It was inappropriate for anybody – including contestants – to be drunk. How can you fulfil your duty of care when free alcohol is involved?”
X Factor star Lucy Spraggan: ‘I knew that I’d been raped’
The Guardian’s report continues by indicating Lucy said she passed out. She was escorted back to the hotel by a member of the production team.
A hotel porter offered to help Lucy to her room. As they left, the porter flipped the security latch on her door to prevent it locking behind them.
Rylan later checked in on an unconscious Lucy, ensuring her door was locked when he left. When the porter later returned to Lucy room in order to attack her, he had to use a traceable keycard.
Lucy said: “I woke up the next day with this sense of sheer dread. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that level of confusion since. I knew that I’d been raped, but I could not process that. So I put my clothes on and went into autopilot.”
‘I was on my own’
The production team called police and an arrest was quickly made. However, Lucy said she believed they were “unprepared” to deal with what had happened.
Lucy received both financial and medical support in the immediate aftermath. However, she said she wasn’t given any support after the trial.
No one ever contacted me to ask if I was OK.
She wrote: “No one ever contacted me to ask if I was OK. No one called or emailed when the trial was over and he was convicted. No one offered me rehabilitation or ongoing mental health treatment. I was on my own.”
Leaving X Factor
Lucy became the first contestant to perform her own songs and play an instrument on X Factor. She progressed through the first three live shows before leaving the programme, reportedly due to illness.
She said she was too unwell to consider continuing with the competition due to the side effects of a drug that prevents HIV.
Additionally, Lucy said she was told “you have your whole career ahead of you and you can’t retract this” when indicating she wanted to go public with the reason for her departure.
She said she had since decided that “in order for me to rebuild myself and move on, I needed to tell the truth”.
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ITV statement
An ITV spokesperson said: “We have the deepest compassion for Lucy and everything she has endured as a result of this horrific ordeal. We commend her resilience and bravery. The X Factor was produced by Thames and Syco, who were primarily responsible for duty of care towards all of its programme contributors. ITV as a commissioning broadcaster is committed to having in place suitable and robust oversight procedures, with a view to ensuring that independent producers employ the correct processes to protect the mental health and welfare of participants. We have evolved and improved these oversight procedures since the events in question and we are encouraged to hear that Thames recognises the importance of continuous review and improvement of their own processes.
“We continue to evolve our own duty of care processes on programmes we produce to ensure that there are appropriate measures in place to support contributors before, during and after filming. In an event of such a distressing nature, welfare and support towards the victim would always be of the utmost priority.”
Fremantle statement
A spokesperson for Fremantle said: “The serious sexual assault suffered by Lucy Spraggan in October 2012 was a truly horrific criminal act for which the perpetrator, who was not connected with the programme, was rightfully prosecuted and imprisoned. Anyone should feel safe when they are sleeping in a hotel room – and it is abhorrent to think that a hotel porter abused that trust in such a vile way. To our knowledge, the assault was an event without precedent in the UK television industry. Whilst we believed throughout that we were doing our best to support Lucy in the aftermath of the ordeal, as Lucy thinks we could have done more, we must therefore recognise this. For everything Lucy has suffered, we are extremely sorry.
“Since then, we have done our very best to learn lessons from these events and improve our aftercare processes. Whilst we have worked hard to try and protect Lucy’s lifetime right to anonymity, we applaud her strength and bravery now that she has chosen to waive that right.”
Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from Rape Crisis. Call 0808 500 2222 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland.
Read more: This Morning viewers shocked by X Factor star Lucy Spraggan’s transformation
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