Author Bret Easton Ellis has apologized for a series of tweets about "Zero Dark Thirty" director Kathryn Bigelow, saying he went "beyond douchiness into another more insensitive realm."

In a new post for The Daily Beast [5], the author of "Less Than Zero" and "American Psycho" says he went too far in tweets that made it "look like I’m attacking Kathryn Bigelow when I just had an urge to tweet about her." He analyzes his statements one by one, standing by some points and expressing regret for others.

The tweets began with one on Dec. 6 in which he wrote, "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 went on to elaborate on that statement -- widely denounced as sexist -- in a series of tweets. In one he wondered if Bigelow's films prior to the Oscar-winnng "The Hurt Locker" were "visionary filmmaking or just OK junk."

Ellis said he was taken to task by several women for the sexism of his tweets, and noted his homosexuality.

"As someone who is not a white, male, heterosexual filmmaker, as someone who has felt like an outsider for things they couldn’t help, as someone who had been bullied for exactly those things he couldn’t help -- I guess I should have known better," he wrote.

Ellis also said he often tweets "after a couple of drinks or glasses of wine," and wondered how much "randomness and juvenilia and alcohol contribute to each tweet." His Bigelow tweets appeared days after another recent tweet, sent at 4 a.m., in which he appeared to ask someone to bring him cocaine.

For the full context of his comments, the entire post is well worth reading: It's a thoughtful look at how personalities change online.