Ed Sheeran becomes first ever artist to hit 100 million followers on Spotify

Singer-songwriter is still 20 million followers ahead of anyone else

Ed Sheeran has become the first ever artist to hit 100 million followers on the streaming platform Spotify.

The seven-time BRIT winner is almost 20 million followers ahead of runner up Ariana Grande, who has 81.64 million followers.

The top ten most followed list features familiar names such as Drake, Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift. Surprisingly, Adele is almost 60m followers behind Sheeran, with just 40.42 million.

The “Shape of You” singer was also the first artist to hit 50 million followers on the streaming platform.

Sheeran took to Twitter to share the news, posting a video of himself wearing a congratulatory t-shirt sent from Spotify.

The t-shirt reads “ASK ME ABOUT MY 100 MILLION SPOTIFY FOLLOWERS” prompting Sheeran to jokingly ask members of his touring team what they think of his achievement.

His team all appear fairly unimpressed, except for his touring support Maisie Peters who congratulates Sheeran with a hug.

You can watch the video here:

Last month, Sheeran broke a new chart record after being named the most played artist of 2021 in the UK.

The singer-songwriter was awarded the distinction by PPL, the music licencing organisation that monitors airplay data captured from radio stations, TV channels, and public performance locations such as offices, shops, bars, nightclubs, music venues and festivals.