Reality TV queen Kim Kardashian boasts an Instagram following of well over 100 million people.
But a recently released report says that nearly half of those are fake, according to The Daily Mirror.
The Institute of Contemporary Music Performance in London just concluded an audit of celebrities’ IG accounts. According to their findings, 44 percent of Kardashian’s 143.6 million IG followers are fake. The ICMP says her fake rate is tied with her sister Khloe Kardashian, who today boasts about 96 million followers.
Surprisingly, the Kardashians do not have the highest percentage of fake followers. That crown belongs to daytime talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, of whom the ICMP says a 58 percent fake rate among her 74.4 million followers. DeGeneres is closely followed in second place by pop singer Katy Perry, of whom the ICMP says 53 percent of her 83.6 million are fake.
Another of Kardashian sisters, Kourtney Kardashian, comes in third on the list with over 49 percent of her vast following being allegedly fake.
Singers Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift and an Indian film actress named Deepika Padukone made the top 10 on the list, according to the ICMP.
Just in case fans are curious, pop goddess Beyoncé, who has 131 million IG fans, was not on this list, and neither was Barack Obama (23 million) or Michelle Obama (32 million), all of whom boasts huge followings on IG.
According to the Daily Mirror and Maxim, celebrities enlist companies who use bots to help boosts their following on IG. This enables celebs to command exorbitant paydays when endorsing products.
However, celebs have also been targeted by bots without their knowledge or approval. This came to light earlier this year when Twitter announced it would be eliminating accounts that promoted hate speech. Also, Donald Trump famously summoned Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to the White House to complain about his plummeting Twitter following. Dorsey explained to the president his numbers reflected the crackdown by bots.
