Messi and Ronaldo Hit by Instagram Bot Purge

Ronaldo remains Instagram’s biggest account

Ronaldo took the larger hit of the two footballers, losing 8 million followers overnight. Even after that drop, he remains Instagram’s most-followed account with more than 666 million followers.

Messi lost 5 million followers in the same purge. The Argentina captain now sits at 507 million Instagram followers, keeping him in second place on the platform.

That still puts Messi nearly 100 million followers ahead of Selena Gomez, who remains third despite losing 6 million followers herself.

Meta’s clean-up hits celebrity accounts

The purge is part of a wider Meta effort to clear spam accounts, inactive profiles and followers believed to be non-organic, including accounts that may have been bought through third-party services.

The important caveat: a follower drop during a bot purge does not prove that a public figure bought followers. It means Instagram has removed accounts from the platform or from follower totals after identifying them as inauthentic or inactive.

Hundreds of thousands of high-profile accounts have reportedly been affected, with industry insiders believing Instagram and Meta are using AI tools to help decide which accounts should be removed.

Kylie Jenner saw the biggest drop

Ronaldo and Messi were not the hardest hit. Kylie Jenner reportedly saw the largest fall during the purge, losing 14 million followers overnight.

For stars, athletes and brands, these numbers matter because follower totals are still used as a rough public measure of influence. They can affect sponsorship value, campaign reach and the basic optics of who dominates a platform.

Ronaldo, however, remains in a different league online. In 2024, he passed 1 billion followers across all of his social media accounts. Alongside his Instagram lead, he still has 107 million followers on Twitter/X, more than 78 million YouTube subscribers and 171 million followers on Facebook.

So yes, 8 million followers vanished overnight. For Ronaldo, that is less a crisis than a rounding error with better lighting.