This Is How Many Instagram Followers Celebs Lost in the Great Purge of 2014

Thanks to everyone else's loss of fans, Kim Kardashian is now the most followed person

By Jenna Mullins Dec 19, 2014 7:24 PMTags
Kim Kardashian, InstagramInstagram

Did you survive the great Instagram purge of 2014?

If your follower count went down suddenly, you are not alone. Instagram announced this week that they were doing a huge clean sweep of spam accounts, so any Instagram follower you had that was a bot or that was deactivated has been wiped out, or will be by the end of December. The account for Instagram itself lost over 18,000,000 followers.

"We're in the process of fixing an issue that incorrectly includes inactive or fake accounts in follower/following lists," the company wrote on its Help page. "We want to maintain the best possible experience on Instagram, so we do our best to remove spam, fake accounts and other people and posts that don't follow our Community Guidelines. As we remove these accounts, some people may notice a decrease in their follower/following counts."

But the people that were hit the hardest were celebs, with some A-listers on Instagram losing millions and millions of followers. From Justin Bieber to Britney Spears, Instagram Purge '14 was super rough on the rich and famous. Poor celebrities. They really can't catch a break, can they?

Here are how many followers your favorite stars lost this week, according to data pulled by Zach Allia. We used sad GIFs so you can adequately feel their social media pain:

1. Justin Bieber

Followers lost: 3,538,228

2. Ariana Grande

Followers lost: 1,529,206

3. Kim Kardashian

Followers lost: 1,300,963

4. Rihanna

Followers lost: 1,159,864

5. Selena Gomez

Followers lost: 1,116,032

6. Kendall Jenner

Followers lost: 906,897

7. Beyoncé

Followers lost: 831,971

8. Harry Styles

Followers lost: 819,775

9. Niall Horan

Followers lost: 748,703

10. Taylor Swift

Followers lost: 725,379

11. Miley Cyrus

Followers lost: 711,898

12. Kourtney Kardashian 

Followers lost: 620,283

13. Nicki Minaj 

Followers lost: 485,299

14. Demi Lovato 

Followers lost: 428,813

15. Channing Tatum 

Followers lost: 346,231

16. Lucy Hale 

Followers lost: 310,560

17. Katy Perry 

Followers lost: 290,570

18. Justin Timberlake  

Followers lost: 242,740

19. Scott Disick 

Followers lost: 230,201

20. Kris Jenner 

Followers lost: 216,169

21. Lauren Conrad 

Followers lost: 165,667

22. Britney Spears

Followers lost: 164,897

23. Zac Efron 

Followers lost: 147,417

24. Nina Dobrev 

Followers lost: 135,480

25. Jennifer Lopez  

Followers lost: 133,158

Never forget where you were during #InstagramPurge2014.