Stephen Fry: I took cocaine at Buckingham Palace… and a few other places besides

In his latest set of memoirs, the actor and writer opens up about his consumption of the drug and lists scores of prestigious British institutions where he took the narcotic, including the House of Lords, the House of Commons and BBC Television Centre.

The claims come in his latest autobiography, More Fool Me, published yesterday and covering the 57-year-old's life in the 1980s and 1990s when he was appearing in a range of TV and films including historical comedy Blackadder, the sketch show A Bit of Fry and Laurie and as Oscar Wilde in 1997 biopic Wilde.

He writes: “I take this opportunity to apologise unreservedly, to the owners, managers or representatives of the noble and ignoble premises and to the hundreds of private homes, offices, car dashboards, tables, mantelpieces and available polished surfaces that could so easily have been added to this list of shame.

“You may wish to have me struck off, banned, black balled or in any other way punished for past crimes; surely now is the time to reach for the phone, the police or the club secretary.”

Fry had already alluded to his drug addiction in his 2010 memoir The Fry Chronicles but the latest instalment offers much more detail about his usage, which he reveals cost him a lot of money.

“How can I explain the extraordinary waste of time and money that went into my 15-year habit?

“Tens if not hundreds of thousands of pounds, and as many hours, sniffing, snorting and tooting away time that could have been employed writing, performing, thinking, exercising, living.”