By Deirdre Simonds and Sean O’grady for Mailonline
22:53 18 Mar 2023, update 23:06 18 Mar 2023
Selena Gomez became the first woman to have 400 million Instagram followers on Friday, just weeks after dethroning Kylie Jenner as a social media platformer.
Hot on her heels is Kylie Jenner, who has 382 million fans on the app, which she uses to share photos from her life and promote her makeup brand, Kylie Cosmetics.
Gomez, 30, is the third most followed person on Instagram behind soccer players Cristiano Ronaldo, who has 562 followers, and Lionel Messi, who has 442 million people watching his every move.
The feat comes less than a month after overtaking Jenner as the most followed woman on the social media platform.
The Wolves singer was previously the most followed woman on the site in 2019 before Ariana Grande beat her to the post, with Kylie, 25, later overtaking them.
Many fans of the singer rejoiced at the news, proclaiming Selena “the queen of Instagram”.
Taking to Twitter, one user wrote: ‘Selena Gomez is once again the most followed woman on Instagram. The Queen is back !”
Another user said: “She is back on her throne. Selena, queen of Instagram!’ while a third called her: “The OG queen of Instagram”.
A fourth said: ‘Selena Gomez is now the most followed female artist on Instagram and Tiktok. A world queen.
Despite having millions of followers, Selena recently told Vanity Fair that she’s retired from social media and only has the TikTok app on her phone.
The star added that she was hurt by the “mean” comments from the trolls and also considered the excessive use of platforms a “waste of time”.
She said: ‘People can call me ugly or stupid and I’m like, whatever. But these people are detailed. They write such specific and nasty paragraphs. I would cry constantly. I had constant anxiety… I couldn’t take it anymore. It was a waste of time.
“There are wonderful things about social media – connecting with fans, seeing how happy and excited they are and their stories.
“But usually it gets filtered (for me now). I’ve created a system. Everything I do I send it to my assistant who posts it. As for the comments, my team will put together some encouraging things .
She has now created a “system” where she has an assistant who acts as a barrier between her and the comments by posting on her behalf.
“I never had the chance to go to a real high school. The world was my high school for a very long time and I started getting inundated with information that I didn’t want,” she explained.
“I went through a rough time with a breakup and didn’t want to see any of the (feedback) – not necessarily about the relationship, but my opinions versus (someone) else. There would be thousands of really nice comments, but my mind goes straight to the bad guy.
“The only thing I have on my phone is TikTok because I find it a little less hostile. There are wonderful things about social media: connecting with fans, seeing how happy they are and excited and their stories.
“But usually it gets filtered (for me now). I’ve created a system. Everything I do I send it to my assistant who posts it. As for the comments, my team will put together some encouraging things .