Selena Gomez has reclaimed her title as Instagram’s most followed woman, surpassing Kylie Jenner. This shift was reported by the celebrity news account PopFaction, noting that Gomez’s follower count exceeded Jenner’s. Although Jenner held a slight lead at 10 A.M. EST today, Gomez overtook her as the day progressed.
By 6:25 P.M. EST, Gomez was leading with 380,644,778 followers, while Jenner was not far behind with 380,425,729 followers. Despite being more present on Instagram recently, Gomez shared with Vanity Fair earlier this month that she only has TikTok on her phone. She removed Instagram years ago and delegates posting to her assistant.
Explaining her decision to step back from most social media platforms, Gomez said, “I never got the chance to go to an actual high school. The world was my high school for the longest time, and I started getting inundated with information that I didn’t want. I went through a hard time in a breakup and I didn’t want to see any of the [feedback]—not necessarily about the relationship, but the opinions of me versus [someone] else. There’d be thousands of really nice comments, but my mind goes straight to the mean one.”
Gomez elaborated on the impact of negative comments, saying, “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. I would constantly be crying. I constantly had anxiety…I couldn’t do it anymore. It was a waste of my time.”
She added, “The only thing I have on my phone is TikTok because I find it to be a little less hostile. There are wonderful things about social media—connecting with fans, seeing how happy and excited they are and their stories. But usually that’s filtered through [for me now]. I created a system. Everything I do I send to my assistant who posts them. As far as comments, my team will put together a few things that are encouraging.”
