Ariana Grande is Instagram's most followed woman
Ariana Grande has 146,437,522 Instagram followers. Credit: Getty Images for Billboard / Mike Coppola
With a margin of more than 100,000, Ariana Grande has overtaken Selena Gomez as the most-followed woman on Instagram.
As of Tuesdayevening, according to the “Top 10 Instagram Users by Followers” list at ProfileRat.com, Grande, 25, had 146,437,522 followers, while fellow singer-actress Gomez, 26, had 146,330,800.
Gomez in October had been the most-followed person when she was edged out by soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, who now has 156,015,352. Instagram itself has the top spot, with 282,183,434.
Neither Grande — who released her fifth studio album, “Thank U, Next,” on Feb. 8 — nor Gomez has commented on social media.
Gomez took a four-month hiatus from social media. On Sept. 23, 2018, she announced on Instagram that she was taking a break, as she has done before. “As much as I am grateful for the voice that social media gives each of us,” she wrote, “I am equally grateful to be able to step back and live my life present to the moment I have been given. Kindness and encouragement only for a bit! Just remember — negative comments can hurt anybody’s feelings. Obvi.”
Gomez revealed in October 2015 that she suffers from the chronic autoimmune disorder lupus, and that she underwent a kidney transplant in 2017. She has continued to face health issues. TMZ.com reported on Oct. 10, 2018, that Gomez had been hospitalized twice over the preceding two weeks, and she was then widely reported to have entered a treatment facility after suffering an emotional breakdown. She did not return to social media until Jan. 14.
Grande was frequently in the news throughout last year during her whirlwind romance with “Saturday Night Live” comic Pete Davidson, to whom she was briefly engaged before the two split.
Wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne Johnson is the next-most-followed person on Instagram, with 133,190,881. Reality-TV star Kim Kardashian is No. 5 with 128,933,773, and her half sister, reality star and cosmetics mogul Kylie Jenner, is No. 6 with 127,886,723. Singers Beyoncé and Taylor Swift and soccer star Neymar da Silva Santos Jr. round out the top 10.
