Selena Gomez Celebrates Becoming First Woman to 400 Million Instagram Followers

Over the weekend, The "Only Murders in the Building" star achieved a new record for any woman on the platform by amassing a stunning 400 million followers. She is also the most-followed American. Selena celebrated the achievement with a new post on Sunday, sitting pretty at 401 million (and we can presume growing!).

"Wishing I could hug all 400 million of you," Selena captioned a carousel of images of her interacting with her legions of fans over the years. Before that, she was sharing love for fellow artist Miley Cyrus to her 400 million followers.

Sharing a fresh-faced selfie late last week, Selena captioned it simply "Violet Chemistry," a title from Miley's latest album, "Endless Summer Vacation." She also shared a gift she'd recently received from "Queen" Miley.

On her Instagram Stories, Selena revealed that Miley had sent her samples from her collaboration with Dolce Glow. Miley re-shared it to her own Stories, commenting to Selena, "You glow naturally, but I had to send you the ESV X DG collab because I LOVE YOU."

Miley and more than 400 million Selena fans have been loving the multi-hyphenated talent's return to the platform. Selena's return to the top began with her return to controlling her own IG feed in January.

She shared that she'd deleted the app from her phone more than four years prior for mental health reasons, handing over control of the platform to her team. "At one point Instagram became my whole world, and it was really dangerous," she told InStyle.

She shared more insight into her life and mental health struggles in her critically-acclaimed Apple TV+ documentary "My Mind & Me, which released in November 2022. The unflinching film covered approximately six years of her life rising to the top and struggling in the spotlight, ultimately canceling her 2016 tour and checking into rehab.

Her comeback was huge, with "Lose You to Love Me" giving her her first US number one in 2019, followed shortly by her Covid-smash series "Selena + Chef" and her lead role on Hulu's "Only Murders in the Building," which premiered in 2021. The latter became the network's most-watched comedy premiere ever and has been nominated for a slew of awards.

While Gomez maintains a healthy follower lead over everyone else in the United States, she trails Argentinian footballer Lionel Messi and Portuguese footballer legend Cristiano Ronaldo.

Here's how the Top 15  most-followed individuals currently stacks up -- for the record, Miley is very respectably in 18th place with 201 million)

1. Cristiano Ronaldo (563 million)
2. Lionel Messi (443 million)
3. Selena Gomez (401 million)
4. Kylie Jenner (382 million)
5. Dwayne Johnson (369 million)
6. Ariana Grande (361 million)
7. Kim Kardashian (349 million)
8. Beyoncé (301 million)
9. Khloé Kardashian (298 million)
10. Justin Bieber (282 million)
11. Kendall Jenner (280 million)
12. Taylor Swift (250 million)
13. Virat Kohli [cricketer] (241 million)
14. Jennifer Lopez (238 million)
15. Kourtney Kardashian (215 million)