"Nobody asked me to leave," he told the Post's Michael Riedel. "I just felt it was time to move on. Read into that what you will."
He's reportedly being replaced by two critics; one of them is Jesse Oxfeld, a former Gawker editor whose theatre writing has been seen in New York magazine.
"I wish the paper all the best," Heilpern told the Post. "I don't want to be too negative about the 12-year-old owner, Jared Kushner, but as my ma and pa from Manchester, England, used to say, 'That boy couldn't run a chip shop.'"
Heilpern writes the Out To Lunch feature in Vanity Fair magazine. His books include "Conference of the Birds – The Story of Peter Brook in Africa," "How Good Is David Mamet, Anyway?" (a collection of theatre essays and reviews) and "John Osborne — The Many Lives of the Angry Young Man," the authorized biography of the British playwright.
Heilpern was born in Manchester, England, and educated at Oxford University.