Justin Bieber fans have a wild theory on why he just lost millions of social media followers

Justin Bieber has just lost a lot of followers on social media, and fans are coming up theories about why.

The singer had been moving ever closer to gaining 100 million followers, but instead of reaching the milestone, the number started to drop.

Tracker instrack reported that Bieber's account on Instagram started to tank, eventually losing over 270,000 followers from the page.

It's not uncommon for big accounts to sometimes lose a big chunk of followers, and this can happen for a variety of reasons.

Fans of Bieber quickly took to social media as screenshots of the loss began to circulate online, speculating as to what might have caused the sudden dip.

While some of the theories were more general, others were a bit more specific to Bieber himself.

Justin and Hailey Bieber (Aeon/GC Images/Getty)

There are many reasons why follower count can drop.

It could be a technical reason, for example the account purging bots in an effort to make sure that the followers there are actually real people, with one person saying: “Every bot purge hits him for like 1–2M followers.”

There's also the possibility that it could just be a glitch.

Sometimes, accounts can lose followers because of something that the person has said or done, and this was at the center of one particular wild theory about Bieber's loss of followers.

More specifically, it was to do with Bieber's marriage to Hailey Bieber, with the pair having tied the knot in 2018. Many fans took to social media to share why they thought this might be connected.

“All the girls finally accepted he’s not their boyfriend," one quipped.

Justin Bieber has lost followers on Instagram (Cassy Athena/Getty Images)

Another joked: “This feels like when your crush suddenly posts his girlfriend after flirting with your stories for weeks.”

But someone else suggested it might be less to do with Bieber's marriage and more to do with his audience simply changing.

“The girls who liked him early on in his career are growing up," they wrote.

Both Justin and Hailey, who have a son together, post frequently about their relationship and their life together, sharing candid posts from their day to day.

One recent post saw Hailey share a picture of her in a bikini to her followers, prompting an adorable reaction from her husband.

Taking to the comments below the picture, which had Hailey wearing a green two-piece swimsuit and a blue bandana, Bieber made his feelings about his wife clear.

He wrote simply: "Oh my f**kin god."