Matt Lucas has closed his Twitter account following abusive messages about his ex-husband who committed suicide in 2009.
The Little Britain star told his 565,000 followers he was leaving the social networking site a joke was tweeted about Kevin McGee. The offending tweet compared the death of Lucas’s ex-husband to that of Mark Speight, a former television presenter.
Lucas (37) entered into a civil partnership with Mr McGee in 2006 but the couple were divorced two years later.
The abusive message was posted on Friday night by a user called Mark Fusco, whose username is @oOfuscoOo.
On Saturday morning Lucas responded to the tweet in a series of messages, saying: "Shame on you. I'm not joking. I think you should delete that tweet. It really upset me.
"I'm disappointed that @oOfuscoOo thinks jokes about the suicide of my former partner are funny."
Mr Fusco responded: "@RealMattLucas I never actually sent this to you. I only put it up as a joke for my friends to see. I didnt mean to be a **** sorry Matt."
Shortly afterwards Lucas announced he would be closing his Twitter account, saying: "I appreciate all the support on here over the past couple of years but it's time to shut down my Twitter account. Xx".
Subsequently Mr Fusco, whose profile states that he is a 16-year-old from a village in County Antrim, Northern Ireland deleted his account.
