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Stephen Fry quits Instagram, claiming newspapers 'suck all the joy out of everything'

The actor, comedian and writer posted a black square to his followers

Rose Troup Buchanan
Monday 30 March 2015 19:19 BST
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(Rex)

Stephen Fry has quit another social media site, again.

The comedian and actor posted his departure from Instagram, where he has 92,000 followers, with the words: “Newspapers, as ever, suck all the joy out of everything. Closing down. It was, briefly, fun. Bye.”

His biography on the site, on which he first posted in on 2 June 2013, now reads: “Hounded off. Goodbye.” The 57-year-old also posted a picture of a black square to accompany his last post.

The reasons behind his departure remain unclear.

On Twitter, his husband Elliot Spencer, who he married earlier this year, last week hinted that he was intending to join the site.

Fry has quit social media sites before. Shortly after presenting the Baftas, Fry posted on 13 February that he would not be posting on the site until May. In a post that redirected to his site, he added: "During that time I will be taking a holiday from twitter and, with a few exceptions, not tweeting at all. "

Last November he left Twitter, where he is followed by more than nine million accounts, after he claimed it was not safe.

Prior to that, in 2009 he threatened to quit the site because “there was too much aggression and unkindness around”.

The writer uses social media infrequently, mostly posting about causes he champions and oddities he encounters.

He announced his marriage to Spencer, 27, on the site posting: “Gosh. @ElliottGSpencer and I go into a room as two people, sign a book and leave as one. Amazing.”

The message was retweeted over 12,000 times and favourited 34,000 times.

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