Prince Shuts Down Social Media Accounts, Pulls Clips From YouTube

Legendarily temperamental pop icon Prince has, after only a few short months of activity, shut down the official Twitter and Facebook accounts of his band 3rdEyeGirl and his solo Facebook page, as well as removing his most recent uploaded clips from his YouTube channel.

As Pitchfork reports, there has been no explanation forthcoming — indeed, there's now no active social media channel through which Prince could explain himself, even if he wanted to — but maybe we don't really need one; Prince's social media stint was notoriously strange and somewhat condescending, from disappointing album promotional tie-ins (fans waited hours to hear three songs in a session orchestrated with Yahoo!) to laughable Q&A efforts.

We'll leave fans to speculate on the many reasons The Purple One may have made the move — from political motivations to creative boredom — and kick back with one of the few remaining clips (and, in fact, the only straight-up music video) left on YouTube until Prince offers up any kind of reasoning for pulling back from the internet in the near future.