Ed Sheeran quits Twitter following online abuse

Singer joins Graham Norton, Leslie Jones, Kanye West in leaving the social media site

Tweets from Sheeran are now limited to tour date posts and automatic updates via Instagram. File photo: Yui Mok/PA Wire
Tweets from Sheeran are now limited to tour date posts and automatic updates via Instagram. File photo: Yui Mok/PA Wire

Singer Ed Sheeran has said that online abuse has driven him off Twitter.

The Glastonbury headliner still updates his Instagram account, but tweets from him are now limited to tour date posts and automatic updates via Instagram.

Sheeran said that he had found comments from trolls so hurtful that he could not face engaging with other Twitter users any more.

He told The Sun: "I've actually come off Twitter completely, I can't read it.

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“I go on it and there’s nothing but people saying mean things — Twitter’s a platform for that.

“One comment ruins your day, but that’s why I’ve come off it.”

He added: “The head-f*** for me has been trying to work out why people dislike me so much.”

The Shape Of You singer, who has 19.2 million followers using the handle @edsheeran, said that he relied on his family and friends to keep him grounded.

He said: “I have people like my dad who will have a conversation with me.

“I don’t have to have someone calling me a whatever.”

Sheeran, who is due to play seven concerts in Ireland next year, is not the first celebrity to quite Twitter.

BBC presenter and author Graham Norton stopped tweeting personally in 2016 but like Sheeran still has an active account which is used to promote his various professional endeavours.

Speaking at the time the Corkman said, “I have kind of fallen out of love with Twitter. It’s not a happy world so I have left it.”

Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones quit Twitter in July 2016 with "tears and a very sad heart" after she faced a barrage of racist abuse which led to Twitter releasing a statement about Jones and cyber bullying.

In May, Kanye West closed his account but did not cite any reason for doing so.

RTÉ presenter Ryan Tubridy quit the social media site in 2011 saying he was wasting too much time on the website and "was just fuelling my own ego" with it.

His colleague, Claire Byrne quit two years later in 2013 following abusive comments relating to her private life after she became engaged.

Stephen Fry, Adele, Zayn Malik and Sam Smith are among those to have taken a break from the social media site in the past.

Sheeran said that a particular low point had come after a misunderstanding involving Lady Gaga’s fans who thought that he had slated her in an interview about musicians whose careers took a down turn after two albums.

He said: “Lady Gaga’s fanbase read an interview in which they assumed I was talking about her and they all f***ing hate me.

“And it wasn’t anything to do with that at all.

“So I think Twitter gets on a massive steam roll of assuming things and then you get in the shit.”

Additional reporting PA