The US star will also be pleased to know that she has almost 15m more followers than Taylor Swift

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

It wasn’t Barack Obama, or Justin Bieber or even Donald Trump. The first person to hit 100 million followers on Twitter is Katy Perry.

The pop star became the most followed person on Twitter last year and the release last week of her album Witness is likely to have helped push her number of followers into nine figures.

Perry is comfortably ahead of Bieber who has 96.7 million and Obama on 90.8 million.

‘I created this character called Katy Perry. I didn’t want to be Katheryn Hudson. It was too scary’ Read more

She may also be pleased to have almost 15 million more fans than Taylor Swift and, for the time being at least, more than three times the number of the former reality TV star turned US president.

Twitter (@Twitter) Today, we #WITNESS history.



Congratulations @katyperry, the first to reach 100 million followers! #LoveKaty pic.twitter.com/41aJyPTtZ2

Perry tweeted in response: “Thank you, @Twitter, for always giving me an opportunity to have a voice!”

She joined the site in February 2009 and has tweeted just over 8,500 times. She recently changed her biography from “Artist. Activist. Conscious” to “I know nothing”.

Witness entered the UK album chart at a disappointing number six this week, but it is set to debut at number one on the Billboard chart when it is published on Sunday. That would give Perry her third consecutive debut at the top of the US album chart, following PRISM in 2013 and Teenage Dream three years earlier.

The 2010 album gave Perry another record, making her the first female artist in US chart history to have five No 1 singles from one album, and equalling the record set by Michael Jackson in the 1980s.

Earlier this month, Perry appeared at the One Love Manchester concert organised by Ariana Grande to raise funds for the families of those killed and injured by the suicide bomber Salman Abedi.

She will return to the UK next weekend to play Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage, which some have deemed an unusual decision given the presence of rock groups the National and Foo Fighters on the Saturday lineup, before a full UK arena tour in summer 2018.

Would she like to return to headline rather than warm-up act? “Sure, if they’ll have me,” Perry told the Observer’s Michael Cragg, shrugging. “I’m happy with where I’m at. The thing is, don’t cry for me. I’m all right. I’m happy.”