Stephen Fry Quits Twitter After Backlash from ‘Bag Lady’ Joke

2 minute read
Stephen Fry attends the British Academy Film Awards nominations announcement at BAFTA Piccadilly on Jan. 8, 2016 in London, England.
Stephen Fry attends the British Academy Film Awards nominations announcement at BAFTA Piccadilly on Jan. 8, 2016 in London, England.David M. Benett—2016 David M. Benett
By Melissa Chan

British comedian Stephen Fry has quit Twitter amid backlash from a joke he made during the British Academy Film Awards about a costume designer’s appearance.

The award show host announced on his blog that he has deactivated his Twitter account, saying he was “free at last” from the self-righteous social media users who have polluted the platform.

Fry blamed the “trolls and nasties” for pushing him to his “tipping point” and ruining the fun of Twitter in a characteristically florid screed against the social media site that quoted poet Rupert Brooke:

Oh goodness, what fun twitter was in the early days, a secret bathing-pool in a magical glade in an enchanted forest. It was glorious ‘to turn as swimmers into cleanness leaping.’ We frolicked and water-bombed and sometimes, in the moonlight, skinny-dipped. We chattered and laughed and put the world to rights and shared thoughts sacred, silly and profane. But now the pool is stagnant. It is frothy with scum, clogged with weeds and littered with broken glass, sharp rocks and slimy rubbish. If you don’t watch yourself, with every move you’ll end up being gashed, broken, bruised or contused. Even if you negotiate the sharp rocks you’ll soon feel that too many people have peed in the pool for you to want to swim there any more. The fun is over.

Fry’s departure comes after criticism from apparently insulting costume design award-winner Jenny Beavan’s looks after she left the stage. “Only one of the great cinematic costume designers would come to an awards ceremony dressed as a bag lady,” he said. Fry later explained that it was a joke and that he and Beavan were friends, according to The Guardian.

He appeared to have no regrets in bidding Twitter farewell. “I don’t feel anything today other than massive relief, like a boulder rolling off my chest. I am free, free at last.”

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