NEWSKardashian-Jenners Face Brutal Instagram Blow as Meta Removes More Than 13 Million of Their 'Bot' Followers
Kylie Jenner, Kim Kardashian and Khloé Kardashian were among celebrities to lost the most Instagram followers overnight.
May 7 2026, Published 4:50 p.m. ET
Kim Kardashian, Khloé Kardashian and Kylie Jenner are among several most-followed celebrities to lose millions of Instagram followers as a result of Meta's cleanup of "bot" accounts on Wednesday, May 6.
The three Kardashian-Jenner ladies lost more than 13 million followers combined, as A-list stars and fans alike woke up to what the internet has dubbed "the Great Purge of 2026" amid Meta's push to get rid of fake or inactive social media accounts fro their system.
Kylie, the second most-followed woman on Instagram behind Selena Gomez, lost more than 5 million followers during the surprise sweep, though she still has a whopping 385 million followers tuned into her profile.
'The Great Purge of 2026'
The three Kardashian-Jenner sisters lost more than 13 million followers combined.
Per data from Social Blade, Kylie specifically had 5,071,791 wiped from her page, with Kim losing 5,109,246 and Khloé's follower count decreasing by roughly 3.7 million.
While many at first thought the mass scrub of inactive accounts was a glitch or technical error, Meta ultimately addressed the situation in a statement to press.
Kylie Jenner, Kim Kardashian and Khloé Kardashian still have almost 1 billion followers in total.
"As part of our routine process to remove inactive accounts, some Instagram accounts may have noticed updates to their follower counts," a spokesperson's message read. "Active followers remain unaffected, and any restored suspended account will be added back in after verification."
Aside from the top-followed Kardashian-Jenner ladies, soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo lost the second most amount of followers with a decrease totaling 6,622,220.
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Instagram itself lost the most followers.
Fellow football legend Lionel Messi lost about 4.8 million followers, while Selena Gomez’s lessened by approximately 5.4 million.
Dwayne Johnson’s follower count dropped by roughly 4.8 million, as Ariana Grande lost around 5.5 million and Beyoncé lost about 4.4 million.
Instagram's official account ironically lost the most followers: a staggering estimate of 10.9 million.
'I Thought I Accidentally Posted Something Bad'
Several social media users were confused when they woke up with a decrease in their Instagram follower count.
While celebrities appeared to suffer the toughest blows, other social media users also felt affects of the purge.
"I lost 300 followers right after getting to 11K," one social media user complained, as reported by Tyla, as another added: "My page is private and I rarely ever accepted people I hadn’t at least interacted with once in real life and tell me why I lost 21 followers."
Meanwhile, a third netizen admitted, "I deada-- lost like 30 followers overnight, I thought I accidentally posted something bad," while someone else stated, "Lost 1.5K followers, wanted to complain, then I came here to confirm it wasn’t only me."
