Stephen Fry announces three-month 'holiday' from Twitter

'Well, off I go. Have a wonderful time without me. I know you will'

English actor Stephen Fry. (LEON NEAL | AFP | Getty Images)

Stephen Fry has announced he will be taking a break from Twitter.

The actor and author confirmed his three-month sabbatical from the social network in a message entitled ‘Away Away-O’ on Friday evening.

“Just a quick note to say that I’m going to be away until May,” he wrote. “During that time I will be taking a holiday from twitter and, with a few exceptions, not tweeting at all.”

His break from tweeting comes after weeks of intense media attention following his engagement to Elliott Spencer.

Fry, who announced he had married Spencer on Twitter, recently admitted deliberately leaking false information in order to deter reporters from their ceremony.

The 57-year-old is a regular Twitter user and has amassed over eight million followers with his updates and comments.

He said a number of prearranged tweets had been scheduled to go out automatically while he is away – which might explain the tweets posted just hours after he announced his absence.

Fry also took the opportunity to stress that he does not “attend at all to direct messages”, telling the “friendly types” who send them: “It is simply impossible for me even to look at them, let alone respond to them, and have anything close to a life. I am sure you understand.”

Fry took a break from social media last year, which he said was due to “contractual reasons” while he was filming in Mexico.

“The insurance company decided that I shouldn’t tweet for fear of kidnapping and things like that,” he told television host Alan Carr in December.

“They didn’t want me to reveal where I was, and they thought it was too complicated to make me insist that so long as I didn’t tweet where I was, because you know, it’s almost impossible, they just said, ‘Don’t tweet, no social networking’."

It is not known if his current leave from Twitter is due to similar contractual reasons.