Stephen Fry has confirmed that he has indeed left Twitter after disappearing off the service in the wake of the row over his "bag lady" joke at the BAFTAs last night (February 14).
The ceremony's host explained in a blog post that he felt the abuse he received showed "too many people have peed in the pool" on Twitter.
However, Fry said it was "not much more than leaving a room", suggesting he may be back.
He deactivated his Twitter account after receiving criticism over a joke where he described Best Costume Design winner Jenny Beavan as looking like a "bag lady".
Fry defended himself, saying he was friends with Beavan, and posted a happy picture of himself with the BAFTA winner. However, he later left the service altogether.
Fry wrote: "I've 'left' Twitter before, of course: many people have time off from it whether they are in the public eye or not. Think of it as not much more than leaving a room.
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"I like to believe I haven't slammed the door, much less stalked off in a huff throwing my toys out of the pram as I go or however one should phrase it. It's quite simple really: the room had started to smell. Really quite bad."
Fry went on to suggest that Twitter had become a "stalking ground for the sanctimoniously self-righteous who love to second-guess, to leap to conclusions and be offended".
"It's as nasty and unwholesome a characteristic as can be imagined," he continued.
"It doesn't matter whether they think they're defending women, men, transgender people, Muslims, humanists... the ghastliness is absolutely the same.
"It makes sensible people want to take an absolutely opposite point of view."
He concluded by saying that he felt "massive relief" in leaving Twitter (for at least the fourth time), adding: "I am free, free at last."
