Who was the first person to reach 100 million followers on Instagram?

Selena Gomez was the first person to reach 100 million followers on Instagram.

She crossed the milestone in September 2016, making her the first individual account to pass the 100-million mark. At the time, Gomez was a singer and actor with a large global audience, and her Instagram presence had become a major part of her public profile. The milestone was widely reported as evidence of Instagram’s growing importance to celebrity culture.

Gomez’s achievement was a point-in-time record, not a permanent claim to having the most followers. Follower rankings change as audiences grow, and other major accounts later passed the threshold. Cristiano Ronaldo eventually became the most-followed individual, while Instagram’s own official account is counted separately as a platform or brand account.

The wording “first person” matters. It refers to an individual human account, not Instagram itself and not a company or organization. It also refers to reaching the threshold first, rather than to who currently has the largest audience.