Selena Gomez became the most followed woman on Instagram and the first female to ever reach this number. The article lists her achievement along with her complicated relationship and past struggles with Instagram and her message to her 400M fans.
Selena Gomez now has more than 400 million Instagram followers. This makes the actress and singer not only the woman with the most followers on the micro-blogging social media site but the only female ever to reach this number. Previously make-up CEO Kylie Jenner had been the most-followed woman on Instagram, but last month Selena reached 381 million followers and re-took the title for herself.
Cristiano Ronaldo, a football player, has more followers total than Selena Gomez, who is the platform’s most famous female user. He has a whopping 562 million fans, compared to Lionel Messi, another World Cup hero, who has 442 million. With 382 million followers, Kylie Jenner is still the second-most followed female user on Instagram.
Selena has consistently had the most fans in the past as well. Before Cristiano Ronaldo overtook her as the most followed person in the globe in 2018, she was. She held the title of most followed lady up until 2019. Ariana Grande then passed her, and Kylie Jenner eventually passed both of them.
Selena Gomez’s Relationship with Instagram
Selena has intermittently appeared on the platform over the years, with the singer and actress declaring on several occasions that she was taking a break from it to help with her mental health and issues with body image.
She gave a team member posting privileges four years ago after developing an unhealthy relationship with the site, and she deleted the app from her phone. She claimed that she was “depressed” at the time and that the incident would cause her to “feel bad about herself and view her body differently.”
She said: “I used to use it a lot, but I think it’s become really unhealthy for young people, including myself, to spend all of their time fixating on all of these comments and letting this stuff in.”
Selena underwent kidney surgery in 2017. She claimed that the medication she takes for the illness she has, lupus, makes her acquire weight. People have responded to this by criticizing her appearance, including on social media. She returned to the platform in January of this year and started posting again, but she has kept an open dialogue about how the site’s comments impacted her.
She announced she was taking a break from social media shortly after passing Jenner as the most followed woman on Instagram. And she opened up to Vanity Fair in a recent interview, saying that she no longer personally uses Instagram on her phone, instead letting her team post for her. She told the outlet her break came after meaningful comments that caused her anxiety.
“People can call me ugly or stupid, and I’m like, whatever. But these people get detailed. They write paragraphs that are so specific and mean,” Gomez told the outlet. “I would constantly be crying. I constantly had anxiety…I couldn’t do it anymore. It was a waste of my time.”
Selena Gomez’s message to her fans
Selena Gomez thanked her fans as she celebrated becoming the first female Instagram user to hit 400 million followers.
In the caption of a photo gallery post on Sunday, Gomez wrote, “Wishing I could hug all 400 million of you.” The post featured pictures of Gomez and her admirers throughout the years.