The Twitter race between Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber come to a head this weekend.
On Sunday, Justin Bieber passed Lady Gaga as the most followed account on Twitter.
As of Friday afternoon Gaga had more than 33,198,000 followers — some 46,000 more than Bieber, who was close behind at 33,152,000. (That’s more than the population of Peru.)
But The Biebs is gained fans at a faster rate, and according to Twitter Counter, which forecasts such things, he was to pass Gaga on Sunday between 4:23 p.m. and 4:24 p.m. ET.
The carefully coiffed li’l crooner was to become Twitter’s first new king or queen (er, prince?) since Lady Gaga dethroned Britney Spears in August 2010 — way back when 5 million followers was a big deal. (For some reason, 7 of the 10 most-followed Twitter accounts are singers.)
But can his Beliebers keep him on top? Will Gaga’s Little Monsters mount a comeback? Or are the two pop stars fated to battle for Twitter supremacy for months, or years to come? Oh, the drama!
Now, as they say in boxing, for the Tale of the Tape. Let’s measure these dueling tweeters, toe to toe:
Age
Gaga: 26
Bieber: 18
Birthplace
Gaga: New York City
Bieber: London, Ontario (that’s Canada, people)
Albums
Gaga: 3
Bieber: 3 (his fourth, “Believe Acoustic,” will be released January 29)
Grammy nominations
Gaga: 15
Bieber: 2
Grammys won
Gaga: 5
Bieber: 0
Time on Twitter
Gaga: 4 years, 11 months
Bieber: 3 years, 10 months
Recent tweet
Number of tweets (as of Friday)
Gaga: 2,583
Bieber: 20,478
Not-so-secret secret
Gaga: Has 14 tattoos
Bieber: Infatuated with the color purple
Embarrassing-but-sort-of-impressive onstage mishap
Gaga: Got whacked with a pole by a backup dancer and kept on performing
Bieber: Threw up and kept performing