- Selena Gomez's reign as the most followed person on Instagram has ended.
- The title now belongs to soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, as reported by Elle.
- Gomez has a famously complicated relationship with social media and doesn't even have access to her own Instagram account.
- Ronaldo was recently accused of raping an American woman in 2009, which he "firmly" denies.
Selena Gomez has been unseated by Cristiano Ronaldo as the most followed person on Instagram.
Elle reported on Monday that Gomez, who had held the title for multiple years, now has 144,308,767 followers, while Ronaldo has 144,309,204.
Gomez has not posted on the app since September 23, when she announced she would be taking another break from social media. (Ronaldo posts semi-regularly.)
The "Back to You" singer has a famously complicated relationship with social media and doesn't even have the password to her own Instagram account.
"Numbers don't matter," Gomez said during an Instagram Live video in late September. "None of this matters. I don't care how many followers I have. I don't. It's insane — so many people are obsessed. Like, chill out."
Ronaldo's new position on the social app comes on the heels of a recent sexual assault accusation leveled at the Portuguese soccer star. Kathryn Mayorga, a 34-year-old American woman, came forward in September to accuse Ronaldo of raping her in a Las Vegas hotel in 2009.
Ronaldo paid her £287,000 (nearly $370,000 USD) in an out-of-court agreement and she pledged never to speak of the incident again, Mayorga's lawyer, Leslie Mark Stovall, said.
Ronaldo issued a statement on Twitter in which he "firmly" denied the accusation.
"Rape is an abominable crime that goes against everything that I am and believe in," he wrote. "Keen as I may be to clear my name, I refuse to feed the media spectacle created by people seeking to promote themselves at my expense."
I firmly deny the accusations being issued against me. Rape is an abominable crime that goes against everything that I am and believe in. Keen as I may be to clear my name, I refuse to feed the media spectacle created by people seeking to promote themselves at my expense.
— Cristiano Ronaldo (@Cristiano) October 3, 2018
In a second tweet, he added, "My clear conscious will thereby allow me to await with tranquillity the results of any and all investigations."
Ariana Grande and Kim Kardashian West are currently the third and fourth most followed celebrities on Instagram, with over 132 and 119 million followers, respectively.
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