Selena Gomez Becomes The First Woman To Have Over 400 Million Instagram Followers

Charis May Bragas

She overtook Kylie Jenner as the most-followed woman on IG.

Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber’s internet drama has dominated headlines for weeks, and Gomez has risen to become the most-followed woman on Instagram in the midst of the uproar as she took Kylie Jenner’s spot as the woman with the most followers on IG.

On Friday, Selena Gomez surpassed 400 million followers on Instagram, making history in the process (March 17). The internet frenzy has resulted in significant follower gains for Gomez and losses for Bieber, as well as increases in searches for Gomez’s cosmetics line Rare Beauty and massive streaming increases for her music collection.

Fans thought the two were fighting more when Gomez thanked fans for their support on some TikToks that talked about Bieber’s supposedly mean behavior. However, both women have denied rumors of a feud in the past and asked their fans to stop being mean to others. Selena has recently informed her followers that she will be temporarily withdrawing from all forms of social media, saying she’s “too old” for it.

Gomez’s recent post depicting a makeup-free selfie with the caption “Violet Chemistry,” a reference to a song by Miley Cyrus from her new album “Endless Summer Vacation” has resonated with her admirers because it exemplifies her openness and vulnerability for which she is so admired.

The “Lose You To Love Me” singer, absent from Instagram for more than four years because of an unhealthy addiction, returned to the photo-sharing site in January and has since had tremendous success. She has delegated posting duties to a colleague to combat her feelings of unworthiness.

“At one point, Instagram became my whole world, which was really dangerous. In my early 20s, I felt like I wasn’t pretty enough. There was a whole period in my life when I thought I needed makeup and never wanted to be seen without it,” Gomez previously said in an interview with InStyle.

On February 22, Gomez surpassed Kylie Jenner as the most-followed woman on Instagram, the same day Bieber and Jenner published a post that some claimed mocked Gomez’s brows, sparking off the storm.

Billboard said that Gomez had 16.1 million on-demand streams in the U.S. for the week ending March 2, up from 11 million the week before. This was her best streaming week since her documentary “Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me” came out in November.

Google Trends says that on February 25, there were almost three times as many searches for “Rare Beauty” as there were on February 22. This trend continued until March 5, when it reached its peak. More than 1.1 billion people have viewed the hashtag “#teamselena” on TikTok, which fans are using to defend Selena Gomez. In comparison, “#teamhailey” has only 88 million views.

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