This list contains the top 20 posts with the most likes on the photo and video-sharing social networking service Instagram.

The most-liked post as of March 2023 is a carousel of the Argentine footballer Lionel Messi and his teammates celebrating the 2022 FIFA World Cup win at Lusail Stadium in Lusail, Qatar, which has been liked by over 75 million different accounts. Uploaded on December 18, 2022, the post shows Messi lifting his first World Cup Trophy after Argentina's win over France in the final. It is also the most liked post of all time across all social media platforms.

Current record

Lionel Messi the current record-holder, at the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Lionel Messi the current record-holder, at the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

On December 18, 2022, footballer Lionel Messi posted a carousel with photos of him lifting the FIFA World Cup Trophy and celebrating with his teammates after winning the 2022 FIFA World Cup with Argentina, which reached 10 million likes within the first 39 minutes of its sharing.[1] The following day, the post became the most-liked Instagram post in the first 24 hours of its sharing, with 50 million likes, and it also became the most-liked ever for a sportsperson, breaking the record of Cristiano Ronaldo, whose photo from November 19, 2022, of him and Messi playing chess reached over 42 million likes.[2][3][4] On December 20, 2022, the post reached over 56 million likes, surpassing the previous record held by @world_record_egg.[5][6][7] Messi also has a record seven (shared with Cristiano Ronaldo) out of the top 20 most-liked posts, with posts mainly released around the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Within 48 hours of Messi posting, the Instagram post had surpassed 64 million likes, and in doing so, it became the most-liked social media post ever across all social media platforms, by overtaking the most-liked post on YouTube, the music video for the song "Despacito", which had reached 50.2 million likes, and the most-liked post on TikTok, a video uploaded by Bella Poarch featuring her lip-syncing to the song "Sophie Aspin Send", which had reached 60.3 million likes.[8][9] This also meant that it became the first ever post on Instagram to reach 60 and 70 million likes, achieving that in just 3 days since it was posted.[10]

Previous record

On January 4, 2019, the account @world_record_egg posted a photo of an egg with the specific purpose of surpassing the then most-liked Instagram post, a picture of Kylie Jenner's daughter with 18.6 million likes.[11] The photo of the egg was originally taken by Serghei Platanov, who then posted it to Shutterstock on June 23, 2015, with the title "eggs isolated on white background."[12] The creator of the @world_record_egg account was Chris Godfrey, an advertising creative, and his friends CJ Brown and Alissa Khan-Whelan.[13][14]

On January 14, 2019, the egg post became the most-liked post on Instagram, to which the egg's account owner wrote "This is madness. What a time to be alive."[15] Jenner responded with a video on Instagram of her cracking an egg open with the caption: "Take that little egg."[16] Platanov was surprised by his photo's popularity, writing, "Egg is just an egg."[12]

Top 20 posts

Two accounts have more than one post in the top 20 most-liked posts list: Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have seven each.

Rank Account name Owner Post description Post Likes
(millions) 		Date posted
(UTC)
1 @leomessi Lionel Messi Photos of Lionel Messi and the Argentina national football team after winning the 2022 FIFA World Cup [1] 75.4 December 18, 2022
2 @world_record_egg Chris Godfrey Photo of an egg [2] 60.0 January 4, 2019
3 @leomessi Lionel Messi Lionel Messi in bed with the FIFA World Cup Trophy [3] 54.7 December 20, 2022
4 @cristiano Cristiano Ronaldo Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi playing chess, advertising for Louis Vuitton [4] 42.8 November 19, 2022
5 @leomessi Lionel Messi Lionel Messi on an airplane with the FIFA World Cup Trophy [5] 42.0 December 19, 2022
6 @cristiano
@alnassr_fc 		Cristiano Ronaldo
Al Nassr FC 		Announcement of Cristiano Ronaldo joining Al Nassr FC [6] 34.6 December 30, 2022
7 @leomessi Lionel Messi Celebrating the 2022 FIFA World Cup win in Argentina [7] 34.4 December 21, 2022
8 @cristiano Cristiano Ronaldo After elimination of Portugal from the 2022 FIFA World Cup [8] 34.3 December 11, 2022
9 @leomessi Lionel Messi Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo playing chess, advertising for Louis Vuitton [9] 32.9 November 19, 2022
10 @cristiano
@georginagio 		Cristiano Ronaldo
Georgina Rodríguez 		Their twins pregnancy announcement [10] 32.7 October 28, 2021
11 @cristiano Cristiano Ronaldo Post in remembrance of Pelé [11] 32.4 December 29, 2022
12 @xxxtentacion XXXTentacion Final post before his death [12] 31.2 May 19, 2018
13 @leomessi Lionel Messi After 2022 FIFA World Cup match against Croatia [13] 29.8 December 14, 2022
14 @cristiano Cristiano Ronaldo Post of Cristiano Ronaldo being presented to the Al Nassr FC fans [14] 28.0 January 3, 2023
15 @cristiano Cristiano Ronaldo Post of friendly between PSG and Riyadh XI [15] 27.9 January 19, 2023
16 @arianagrande Ariana Grande Photos of Ariana Grande at her wedding with Dalton Gomez [16] 26.3 May 26, 2021
17 @leomessi Lionel Messi Post in remembrance of Pelé [17] 26.1 December 29, 2022
18 @zendaya Zendaya Happy birthday post to Tom Holland [18] 25.9 June 1, 2022
19 @tomholland2013 Tom Holland Recreating the "Spider-Man pointing" meme with Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield [19] 25.0 February 23, 2022
20 @kyliejenner Kylie Jenner Second pregnancy announcement [20] 24.8 September 8, 2021
As of 2 March 2023

Historical most-liked posts

The following table lists the last ten posts that were once the most-liked post on Instagram, with the number of likes as they were when the top spot was reached.

  Current record
  Longest record-holder
Account name Owner Post description Post Likes
(millions) 		Date posted
(UTC) 		Date achieved
(UTC) 		Days Held
@leomessi Lionel Messi Photos with the Argentina national football team after winning the 2022 FIFA World Cup [21] 56.0 December 18, 2022[17] December 20, 2022[5] 94
@world_record_egg Chris Godfrey Photo of an egg [22] 19.0 January 4, 2019[18] January 14, 2019 1,436
@kyliejenner Kylie Jenner First photo of her daughter [23] 11.3 February 6, 2018[19] February 7, 2018 341
@beyonce Beyoncé Pregnancy announcement [24] 6.3 February 1, 2017[20] February 1, 2017 371
@selenagomez Selena Gomez Coca-Cola advertisement [25] 3.7 June 25, 2016[21] July 12, 2016 204
@justinbieber Justin Bieber Kiss with Selena Gomez [26] 3.5 March 19, 2016[22] May 4, 2016 69
@kendalljenner Kendall Jenner Heart-shaped hairdo [27] 3.5 May 25, 2015[23] June 26, 2015 313
@kimkardashian Kim Kardashian Wedding kiss with Kanye West [28] 1.9 May 27, 2014[24] May 29, 2014 393
@justinbieber Justin Bieber Hug with Selena Gomez [29] 1.5 January 4, 2014[24] — ~145
@justinbieber Justin Bieber Post with Will Smith [30] 1.4 August 15, 2013[25] — ~142
@justinbieber Justin Bieber Post with his siblings [31] 0.06 December 29, 2011[26] — —
As of 23 March 2023

See also

References

  1. ^ Fenton, James (December 19, 2022). "Lionel Messi's first Instagram post after World Cup win set to break records". Pundit Arena. Archived from the original on December 19, 2022. Retrieved December 19, 2022.
  2. ^ Badenhausen, Kurt (December 19, 2022). "Lionel Messi hits 400M followers on Instagram, photo becomes most-liked". Sportico. Archived from the original on December 19, 2022. Retrieved December 20, 2022.
  3. ^ Cons, Roddy (December 19, 2022). "Lionel Messi sets all-time Instagram record". Diario AS. Archived from the original on December 20, 2022. Retrieved December 20, 2022.
  4. ^ McVitie, Peter (December 19, 2022). "Overshadowing CR7 on & off the pitch! Messi breaks Ronaldo's Instagram record for most-liked post after World Cup win". Goal. Archived from the original on December 19, 2022. Retrieved December 20, 2022.
  5. ^ a b Hassan, Beril Naz (December 20, 2022). "Lionel Messi's World Cup Instagram post breaks record to become most-liked ever". Yahoo! Sports. Archived from the original on December 20, 2022. Retrieved December 20, 2022.
  6. ^ Punt, Dominic (December 20, 2022). "Messi lifting World Cup becomes most liked Instagram post ever". Guinness World Records. Archived from the original on December 20, 2022. Retrieved December 20, 2022.
  7. ^ Gerken, Tom (December 20, 2022). "Lionel Messi World Cup Instagram post is most-liked ever". BBC. Archived from the original on December 20, 2022. Retrieved December 20, 2022.
  8. ^ Corbella, Enrique (December 21, 2022). "Messi beats the record of likes in the history of all social media: Beats TikToker Bella Poarch". Marca. Archived from the original on December 21, 2022. Retrieved December 21, 2022.
  9. ^ Navlakha, Meera (December 21, 2022). "Lionel Messi's Instagram post is the most liked thing on social media – ever". Mashable. Archived from the original on December 21, 2022. Retrieved December 21, 2022.
  10. ^ Hassan, Jennifer (December 21, 2022). "Lionel Messi's World Cup win becomes most liked Instagram post ever". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on December 21, 2022. Retrieved December 21, 2022.
  11. ^ Earnest, Malik (January 11, 2019). "An egg plans to dethrone Kylie Jenner as most liked Instagram post". Fox 5 San Diego. Archived from the original on February 3, 2019. Retrieved January 13, 2019.
  12. ^ a b Shamsian, Jacob (January 16, 2018). "The guy who took a photo of an egg that broke Instagram's world record is shocked it became a meme: 'Egg is just an egg'". Insider. Archived from the original on January 19, 2019. Retrieved January 17, 2019.
  13. ^ Bromwich, Jonah Engel; Maheshwari, Sapna (February 3, 2019). "Meet the Creator of the Egg That Broke Instagram". The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 6, 2019. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
  14. ^ Delahunty, Stephen (February 4, 2020). "World Record Egg team launches agency backed by Blurred and Tin Man". PRWeek. Archived from the original on March 28, 2020. Retrieved February 9, 2020.
  15. ^ Monika Barton (January 14, 2019). "'This is madness' - Picture of an egg beats Kylie Jenner for most liked Instagram post ever". Newshub. Archived from the original on January 14, 2019. Retrieved January 14, 2019.
  16. ^ Michelle Broder Van Dyke (January 13, 2019). "A Picture Of An Egg Beat Kylie Jenner For The Most Liked Instagram Of All Time". Teen Vogue. BuzzFeed News. Archived from the original on January 14, 2019. Retrieved January 14, 2019.
  17. ^ Fenton, James (December 19, 2022). "Lionel Messi's first Instagram post after World Cup win set to break records". Pundit Arena. Retrieved December 20, 2022.
  18. ^ Tasimone, Ashley (January 14, 2019). "An Egg Dethrones Kylie Jenner & Travis Scott's Baby for Most Liked Instagram Photo Ever". Billboard. Archived from the original on April 10, 2019. Retrieved January 14, 2019.
  19. ^ "Kylie Jenner's Stormi Photo Tops Beyonce's Pregnancy Reveal as Most-Liked Instagram Post Ever". Billboard. Archived from the original on June 18, 2018. Retrieved September 27, 2021.
  20. ^ Unterberger, Andrew (February 1, 2017). "Beyonce Pregnancy Photo Breaks Selena Gomez Record for Most-Liked Instagram Pic". Billboard. Archived from the original on July 31, 2018. Retrieved January 12, 2019.
  21. ^ Craddock, Lauren (July 12, 2016). "Selena Gomez Tops Justin Bieber for Most-Liked Instagram Photo Ever". Billboard. Archived from the original on August 13, 2018. Retrieved January 12, 2019.
  22. ^ Stutz, Colin (May 4, 2016). "Justin Bieber & Selena Gomez Throwback Pic Is Now Instagram's Most-Liked". Billboard. Archived from the original on December 22, 2018. Retrieved January 12, 2019.
  23. ^ Stutz, Colin (June 26, 2015). "Kendall Jenner Breaks Kanye West & Kim Kardashian's Instagram Record". Billboard. Archived from the original on June 17, 2018. Retrieved January 12, 2019.
  24. ^ a b Nessif, Bruna (May 29, 2014). "Kim Kardashian's Wedding Photo Breaks Instagram Record For Most Likes—Sorry, Justin Bieber!". E! News. Archived from the original on April 16, 2018. Retrieved January 12, 2019.
  25. ^ Rodriquez, Salvador (December 13, 2013). "Justin Bieber rules Instagram with most liked photo of 2013". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on February 3, 2022. Retrieved February 3, 2022.
  26. ^ Shontell, Alyson (January 5, 2012). "This Is The Most Liked Instagram Picture Of All Time". Business Insider. Archived from the original on April 21, 2021. Retrieved March 9, 2021.
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