Country singer Clare Dunn has revealed that she was physically assaulted by her Lyft driver during a recent trip to Nashville, recounting the terrifying story to PEOPLE, who obtained an incident report from the assault. The “Tuxedo” singer shared that she had gone out for the night with friends on June 26 and ordered a Lyft with one friend around midnight, requesting that the driver take them both home.
Dunn’s friend was dropped off safely, and when the driver began the 10-mile trip to Dunn’s home, the singer asked that he take the “slower route” and avoid going on the highway. “We were barreling towards the interstate and I spoke up and was like, ‘Hey, that was my turn. Where are you going? You need to take the next right turn,’” she said, adding that the driver became agitated. “He was screaming at me. I couldn’t really make it out — his English wasn’t the best. And I just knew in that moment that I wasn’t going to get on that interstate with him. I wasn’t going to go quietly where he wanted to take me. And I think he realized maybe this girl was going to be more trouble than she’s worth.”
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The driver eventually pulled the car over one mile from Dunn’s home, and the singer said that before she “could even get my shoes off or get my phone to try and call 911, he grabbed me by the collar, ripped me out of the backseat and slammed me face-first down into a ditch.”
“Somehow in the scuffle, I thought I called 911, but I didn’t even get the number right,” she continued. “But it was a miracle. They called me back. And when I came to, I was screaming, and I saw headlights. He ended up just leaving me alone at that point and took off.” The 34-year-old’s face was left bruised and bleeding, and she went to the emergency room following the assault.
“I had that intuition that something was wrong, and I ignored it,” she noted, recalling that both she and her friend having a feeling that something wasn’t right. “The next morning, the friend I was in the car with was telling me, ‘Oh my God, I had this feeling when I got out of that ride,’” Dunn shared. “She said, ‘I so wanted to just tell you to get out.’”
“It makes me emotional, but she said, ‘I wanted to tell you to get out and we’ll get another ride, or you could just sleep on my couch,’ and we both ignored it,” she continued. “As women, we sometimes do that but I think when we have those feelings, they are alarm bells. I remember just telling myself that I was overthinking it and I just wanted to go home. That’s all I remember thinking about it and just trying to tell myself, it’s fine. I blame myself.”
The driver has since been identified with the help of a detective and there is currently a warrant out for his arrest. Lyft said in a statement, “Safety is fundamental to Lyft. The behavior described is appalling, and we permanently removed the driver from the Lyft platform as soon as we learned of this incident. We’ve reached out to Ms. Dunn to offer our support and are assisting law enforcement with their investigation.”
Dunn hopes that her story can help others keep themselves safe, and she shared lessons including taking screenshots of driver’s information on rideshare apps and taking photos of their license plates before getting in the car.
“This has been hell,” she said. “I don’t want anyone else to go through it. Even if it just can keep one girl or one guy from going through this … he knew what he was doing. He hit ‘complete the ride’ after it was done. I didn’t take a screenshot of his license information during the ride. All of that goes away when a ride is completed. All I had was a little tiny profile picture and his first name. It’s a slow process if you don’t have all that info.”
