Stephen Fry: 'I snorted cocaine at Buckingham Palace'

Recovering drug abuser Stephen Fry has revealed he once snorted cocaine at Buckingham Palace.

In a new autobiography, the actor/funnyman and author confesses he was high during trips to the House of Lords, the House of Commons and other top institutions at the height of his 15-year drug problem.

But he's most ashamed of taking cocaine at the Palace.

In More Fool Me, he writes, "I take this opportunity to apologize 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."

He admits he deeply regrets "the extraordinary waste of time and money" he spent on drugs, adding it amounts to, "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.

"I didn't take coke because I was depressed or under pressure. I didn't take it because I was unhappy (at least I don't think so). I took it because I really, really liked it."

In a further extract from his latest memoirs - published by the Daily Mail - Fry, 57, recalls dumping three grams of cocaine in his possession in the back of a police van following a DUI arrest, because he feared he would be charged with intent to supply. A police officer reportedly handed him the drugs as he left the police station hours later.