Jaycee Dugard, who was kidnapped and held captive for 18 years, talks about life as a single mother

IT’S been seven years since Jaycee Dugard was held captive for 18 years. Now, the 36-year-old talks about being a single mum to her kidnappers’ kids.

Jaycee Lee Dugard when she was a young girl. Now 36, she has spoken out about being a single mum to daughters fathered by her kidnapper.

IT’S been seven years since Jaycee Dugard was released from her kidnapper Phillip Garrido, who grabbed her off the street when she was just 11-years-old.

Held captive for 18 years, Ms Dugard became the subject of a worldwide media frenzy in 2009 when she was found alive, after she had been abducted by a convicted sex offender.

Dugard was kidnapped while on her way to school in South Lake Tahoe, California. She

was held by Phillip and his partner Nancy, who raped and drugged her repeatedly. After her escape, Garrido was sentenced to 431 years to life for his crimes, while his wife Nancy was sentenced to 36 years to life.

Phillip Garrido received 431 years to life for the 1991 kidnap and rape of Jaycee Lee Dugard.

While held captive, Dugard gave birth to two daughters who were fathered by her kidnapper after he raped her.

Now, a 36-year-old Dugard has revealed in her second memoir, titled Freedom: My Book of Firsts, about life as a single mother to her kidnapper’s daughters.

“I see my daughters have relationships and I feel like one day when the time is right I will meet the right person for me,’ she wrote, which has been published exclusively as an except in People Magazine.

Oprah Winfrey and Jaycee Lee Dugard pose onstage at the 3rd annual Diane Von Furstenberg awards at the United Nations. Picture: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images

Despite the challenges both daughters face, Dugard admits that they are doing well — with one in university, and another about to start.

“I’m so excited for them and so proud of all the challenges they have overcome,” she writes.

“My daughters are both so important to me, and I am so proud of who they are growing up to be. I’ve done my best to protect them over the years, just like any other mother would do for her kids.

“You might wonder why not more of this book is about them since they are such a big part of my life.

“I have chosen it to be this way for the simple reason that I believe they deserve the right to their own stories. One day if they want to, they can write them their way.”

Jaycee Lee Dugard when she was a young girl.

Admitting that her sense of beauty was clearly impacted by Garrido, Ms Dugard revealed one night when he dressed her up and tears streamed down her face during the ordeal.

“I told him I felt ugly,” Dugard writes.

“I remember he looked at me and said, ‘You look beautiful. Here, I will show you. Look into the mirror.

A child's swing is shown at a home where authorities say kidnapped victim Jaycee Lee Dugard lived.

“When a psycho grown-up man that has kidnapped you and taken you away from everything you have known and loved forces you to ‘dress up’ and put on makeup for his personal fantasies ... your viewpoint can change.

“I don’t doubt that he thought I was pretty that night,” she continued.

“His creation. The girl he took from the bus stop. A girl he controlled and could be anything he wanted … all I saw was a very frightened girl who I didn’t even recognise with mascara running down her cheeks and the saddest face I had ever glimpsed staring back at me.”

A young Jaycee Dugard before she was kidnapped at 11 years of age.

Dugard says that since being released from her prison, she is yet to go on a date — admitting she is still adapting to life in the real world.

“I have never even been on a date before!’ she writes.

“The only boy ever to ask me out was 10, and I was nine.

“I didn’t really know what to say so I turned him down. I kind of regret that now, but who knew it would be my only opportunity.”

Jaycee Dugard did her first excusive interview with Diane Sawyer in 2011.

As a single mother-of-two, Dugard has been quite open with the world about her horrific ordeal. Her first memoir, titled ‘A Stolen Life: A Memoir, was published just two years after her release. The aim of the story was to assist other survivors of sexual abuse, and that her experience was not going to dictate the rest of her life.

“Something terrible happened to me, but I’m not going to let it ruin the rest of my life,’ she said.

Jaycee Dugard’s second memoir, Freedom: My Book of Firsts, will be available on July 12.