Singer Ed Sheeran has hit back at critics who said his decision to delete and then reactivate his Twitter account this week was due to backlash after he posted pictures from his cameo in Game Of Thrones.

He insisted that the move had nothing to do with the pictures, which showed him on set in his Lannister costume, and with actress Maisie Williams.

Big up @maisie_williams

A post shared by Ed Sheeran (@teddysphotos) on

On Wednesday he posted a photo of himself and his manager and wrote: “Last i’ll say on this. I came off Twitter Coz I was always intending to come off Twitter, had nothing to do with what people said about my game of thrones cameo, because I am in game of thrones, why the hell would I worry what people thought about that. It’s clearly f*****’ awesome.

“Timing was just a coincidence, but believe what you want. Here is an unrelated picture of me and my wonderful manager riding off into the sunset together.”

Within a day of rejoining the global social media platform, Sheeran’s legions of followers soared to more than 13 million.

Staying true to his promise to move on from the subject, he followed the post with a clip of himself practising music with fellow Brit artist Jamie Lawson.

Sheeran played guitar as they sang the Ivor Novello award-winning artist’s upcoming single Can’t See Straight.

The Shape Of You star signed Lawson to his label Gingerbread Man Records in 2015.