Bret Easton Ellis and Kathryn Bigelow (WENN.COM)

American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis has written an open letter to director Kathryn Bigelow to apologize for making scathing remarks about her on Twitter.com.

The novelist/screenwriter incurred the wrath of followers on the social networking website earlier this month when he appeared to mock The Hurt Locker moviemaker's abilities, writing, "Kathryn Bigelow would be considered a mildly interesting filmmaker if she was a man but since she's a very hot woman she's really overrated."

He later added, "I still believe that if The Hurt Locker had been directed by a man it would not have won the Oscar for Best Director."

Ellis has now written an open letter to the Oscar-winner titled 'An apology to Kathryn Bigelow' to make amends for the tweets.

In the note, published on Thedailybeast.com, Ellis writes, "(I was) just wanting to have fun and be a bit of a provocateur in 140 characters. And then realizing... err, that's not really fun or that provocative. It goes beyond d**chiness into another more insensitive realm...

"I don't want to hurt anybody. And I'm not even saying that Kathryn Bigelow was hurt or even noticed the tweets or even cared... The outcry over the Bigelow tweets was eye-opening to me in a way that nothing else has ever been. I got it. I heard it. I looked back at what I was doing with those tweets... and I have to admit they simply back-fired. Which is why I'm writing this. No one asked me to write this. I simply write something like this when I'm in pain. And I've been slowly feeling a painfulness when reading all of the articles reacting to those tweets."

He goes on to insist he will be taking a break from Twitter over the holidays and hopes to return to the website in the new year, adding, "I'm taking a bit of a break from Twitter - not fully, not all the time, just over the holidays - until I see Kathryn Bigelow's new movie. And then, perhaps, we can start all over again."