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Ronaldo rises in Instagram ranks, but Selena's still queen

Cristiano Ronaldo is now the third most-followed Instagram user, while Selena Gomez tops the list for the third consecutive year.

Daniel Van Boom Senior Writer
Daniel Van Boom is an award-winning Senior Writer based in Sydney, Australia. Daniel Van Boom covers cryptocurrency, NFTs, culture and global issues. When not writing, Daniel Van Boom practices Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, reads as much as he can, and speaks about himself in the third person.
Expertise Cryptocurrency, Culture, International News
Daniel Van Boom
2 min read
Atletico Madrid v Real Madrid - La Liga

Cristiano Ronaldo does well on the field and on social media. 

Helios de la Rubia

Instagrammers sure do love popstars. And soccer, aka football.

Instagram on Wednesday revealed its annual list of most popular accounts, with Selena Gomez at the top for the third year in a row. The singer and actress has 130 million followers, beating fellow singer Ariana Grande by about 15 million.

Quickly climbing the ranks is soccer/football star Cristiano Ronaldo, who was just behind Grande with about 115 million followers. He was No. 6 last year, but vaulted to third place thanks to 30 million new Instagram fans. Ronaldo also had the most-viewed video on the year on the platform. The video of him showing off his new Bugatti Chiron was viewed just under 20 million times. The Chiron costs around $3 million, by the way.

He's also not the only football/soccer star gaining popularity on the Facebook-owned social network. Leo Messi gained 21 million followers, bringing his total up to 83.9 million.

The most-liked photo of the year? Y'all already know. Beyonce announced she was pregnant with twins on the Gram back in February, around which time it became the most-liked Instagram post of all time. It now has more than 11.18 million likes. Lemonade for all!

The Kardashians were well represented, with Kim at No. 6 (104 million), the oh-so-woke Kylie Jenner at No. 7 (99.5 million) and Kendall Jenner at No. 10 (84.8 million).  

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