It’s clear that some celebrities have a love-hate relationship with social media, but most stars have trouble staying away from Twitter and Instagram … even after they announce a “social media break.”
Selena Gomez, who was once the most-followed person on Instagram, announced she was stepping back from the internet in 2016 amid her secret battle with lupus. Over the next two years, the “Rare” songstress was on and off the app.
“Update: taking a social media break. Again,” she wrote in September 2018 via Instagram. “As much as I am grateful for the voice that social media gives each of us, I am equally grateful to be able to step back and live my life present to the moment I have been given. Kindness and encouragement only for a bit! Just remember – negative comments can hurt anybody’s feelings. Obvi.”
Gomez shed more insight into her struggles with social media in June 2019, revealing she doesn’t have Instagram on her phone anymore.
“I have it on someone else’s phone and when I feel like I have something I want to share with my fans, or just want to mess around on it, I do it then,” she said on Live With Kelly and Ryan.
While Gomez typically commits to her social media hiatuses, other celebrities are back to posting within days — or hours — after declaring they were putting their phones down. The Bachelor’s Arie Luyendyk Jr. and Lauren Burnham, for example, told Chris Harrison on After the Final Rose in March 2018 that they were planning to avoid social media after the controversial ending of the season 22. Luyendyk Jr. got engaged to Burnham, his runner-up, after he broke off his engagement to winner Becca Kufrin.)
Two days later, the pair jetted off to Iceland — and documented every step of the adventure.
“I know our social media ‘break’ has been a topic of conversation,” Lauren explained later that month. “We have just been excited to share our life outside of The Bachelor with everyone since we’ve been having so much fun! The break we mentioned was more directed towards spending time reading comments, not about posting pictures.”
Scroll through for the shortest social media breaks in recent history: