Several celebrities have reportedly experienced major declines in their Instagram follower counts. Meta stated that the phenomenon is part of the company’s routine processes. The account that lost the most followers was Kylie Jenner’s. According to data from BPT Scans, the reality TV star lost nearly 15 million followers.

Two global football stars, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, were also affected. Celebrity Radar reported that Messi lost around 4 million followers, while Ronaldo saw a decrease of approximately 8 million followers.

Other major accounts that also experienced follower losses included Blackpink, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez, and Justin Bieber.

Instagram’s parent company explained that the decline happened because Meta is currently cleaning the platform of bot accounts. The company regularly removes inactive accounts as part of its maintenance process.

Meta emphasized that this policy does not affect active accounts.

“As part of our routine process of removing inactive accounts, some Instagram accounts may notice updates to their follower counts. Active followers remain unaffected, and any suspended accounts that are restored will be included again after verification,” Meta stated, as quoted by Financial Express on Friday (8/5/2026).

The phenomenon has also sparked widespread discussion among social media users. Over the past few days, conversations about the large-scale cleanup have dominated online timelines.

Some users noticed that major celebrity accounts were experiencing sharp declines in follower numbers. Others explained that the situation was caused by Meta’s ongoing effort to remove bot and inactive accounts from the platform.