Why Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi lost millions of Instagram followers

Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are among those to lose millions of followers on Instagram after the platform embarked on a major bot purge.

Many took to social media to reveal that they had lost followers, with millions of fake and inactive accounts being wiped from the system in a six-hour period.

Instagram often tidy up their platform with a cleaning spree that removes bots and cracks down on spam. But the latest efforts were extremely aggressive and resulted in some of the most famous person in the world losing a staggering amount of followers.

Logan Paul and KSI have lost hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, with Wrexham co-owner Ryan Reynolds also seeing a huge drop.

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, meanwhile, is believed to have lost five million followers - the same amount of as eight-time Ballon d'Or winner Messi. Neymar, has seen his follower count drop by four million overall.

But it appears as though Ronaldo, the most-followed person on Instagram, experienced a monumental decrease to the tune of 18 million.

The Portuguese superstar currently has 666 million followers on Instagram, where he shows off his lifestyle away from the pitch and earns from various paid partnership and lucrative brand deals.

Insta yet to comment on follower purge

Instagram have not officially commented on the purge, which has also impacted the likes of President Donald Trump, Pope Francis, Justin Bieber and Kylie Jenner.

As previously reported by CNN, the Al Nassr forward earns a staggering £2.57 million per Instagram post - more than any other celebrity.

That rate has increased significantly over the years, as Ronaldo and his team previously charged £250,000 for a third of his social media output many years ago when he did a digital-only deal with Sport Lobster, an app Michael Owen was an investor.

"We were the first guys to be a digital-only deal with Cristiano Ronaldo for a quarter of a million pounds," Harry Hugo, the company's former head of social, told Rising Ballers.

"That was for the year, for a third of his social media output. So we're talking like nearly 30-40 posts that are dedicated to Sport Lobster, dedicated with a link to download and that cost a quarter of a million quid.

"It costs a million quid for him to turn up to a TV photoshoot and now it costs a million quid for him to post on anything. So it was an unbelievable deal.

"It got to a point where every time he posted it would generate us like two thousand downloads. He had a hundred million followers."