In a massive cleanup, many celebrities, including Kylie Jenner and K-pop girl group BLACKPINK, have lost millions of followers on Instagram. The Instagram bot purge happened overnight, and many big names lost followers. This is reportedly being called the ‘Great Purge of 2026.’
For those wondering if this was a result of cancel culture, no, it was just an Instagram update. The abrupt drop, which happened overnight, is part of Instagram’s bold new initiative to cleanse the platform of spam, inactive users, and “non-organic” followers, as reported by Yahoo. This includes accounts purchased via external services or those identified as automated bots.
The follower drop affected several celebrities with some of the largest follower numbers, like football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, beauty mogul Kylie Jenner, pop singer Taylor Swift, BLACKPINK and K-pop stars, and Beyoncé.
Kylie Jenner Was the ‘Most Affected’
According to reports, Kylie Jenner lost staggering 15 million followers in just a few hours after the massive cleanup. BPT Scans revealed that the beauty entrepreneur and reality TV personality lost almost 15 million followers due to the bot removal on Instagram and is the worst affected among all celebrities.
According to Celebrity Radar, a third-party follower service that kept track of the celebrities’ online database, revealed that popular footballers, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, lost 4 million and 8 million followers, respectively. Before the bot purge, Ronaldo had 673 million followers and Messi had 512 million followers.
BLACKPINK Loses Over 10 Million Followers
As per the Pop-Rant report, K-pop girl group BLACKPINK lost more than 10 million followers from their official Instagram account. The group’s members were also hit. Lisa reportedly lost 1.1 million on her individual profile. Rose and Jennie both lost around 700,000 followers, and Jisoo saw a decrease of 600,000.
Kylie Jenner Accused of Having ‘Fake’ Followers
Last year, in February, according to RadarOnline analysis, Kylie Jenner was accused of having fake followers on Instagram when she neared the 400 million mark on Instagram. inBeat.co, which analyzed Kylie Jenner’s social media following, revealed that only 25% of her followers were authentic. According to the website, only 24 percent of her followers were real accounts, whereas the remaining could potentially be bots or fake accounts.
Many fans reacted to the analysis and criticized Jenner for having fake followers. One wrote, “It’s bad enough they filter and photoshop images to sell a fake face/body… but this is just ridiculous. We need more transparency on social media.” Another stressed, “Coincidentally, only 24 percent of her body is real.” Aiming at the Kardashians and the Jenners, one netizen said, “That’s what the K and J do!!!” “Not disappointed nor surprised,” wrote one more.
According to an official statement from a Meta representative, the sudden interruption was part of Instagram’s ‘routine process’. The official statement read, “As part of our routine process to remove inactive accounts, some Instagram accounts may have noticed updates to their follower counts. Active followers remain unaffected, and any restored suspended account will be included in the count again after verification.”
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‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
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