Lady Gaga, the most followed female star on Twitter has temporarily shut down her profile ahead of the release of her third album.

Gaga was the most followed person on the micro-blogging site for a long time but was de-throned by teen star Justin Bieber at the beginning of this year.

She made the decision ahead of the highly anticipated release and it has led to speculation that she may be preparing to make an announcement related to the album.

Now all that is on her page is the default profile picture of an egg and her bio reads: "This interface has been shutdown temporarily. Please check back for updates."

The new album entitled ARTPOP has experienced a number of delays in being released, mostly down to Gaga’s hip injury which caused her to cancel a number of dates on her Born This Way Ball.