X Factor star Lucy Spraggan has revealed she was raped by a hotel porter during her time on the ITV show.
The singer was 20 when she was a contestant on the singing competition back in 2012.
In her new memoir, Process: Finding My Way Through, she said the sexual assault took place after a night out celebrating pal Rylan Clark’s 25th birthday at nightclub in Mayfair, London.
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The young star said she 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.
She added that the porter flipped the security latch on her door to prevent it locking behind them.
Rylan later checked in on Lucy and made sure her door was locked when he left.
This meant when the hotel staff member returned to Lucy’s room to attack her, he had to use a traceable keycard.
She told the Guardian: “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."
An arrest was quickly made after the production team called the police but Lucy said she felt they were "unprepared" to support her in the aftermath.
"No one ever contacted me to ask if I was OK," she writes in her book.
Lucy added: "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."
ITV has responded to Lucy's harrowing story.
A spokesperson told Daily Star: "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.
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"In an event of such a distressing nature, welfare and support towards the victim would always be of the utmost priority."
A spokesperson for Fremantle, the show’s producers, told The Sun: "While 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."
Daily Star have reached out to Syco for a comment.
If you have been affected by this story, contact Rape Crisis England & Wales for free confidential support and information on 08088029999 or their website or 08088010302 if you're calling from Scotland.
You can contact the Domestic and Sexual Abuse helpline on 0808 802 1414 if you are in Ireland.
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