Kanye West May Have Just Lost 9 Million Twitter Followers (or Not)

Kanye West’s pro-Trump tweets may have gotten him into trouble on Wednesday, as the rapper appears to have lost about 9 million followers on Twitter.

West was on a controversial tear on Wednesday, tweeting about everything from new music he has on the way to his kids to his pro-Trump political views. The latter is what caught the world’s attention, however, and not in a good way.

The 40-year-old rapper posted several tweets stating his continued support for the president, no matter how much backlash he gets for it. President Trump even retweeted one of the posts, adding “Thank you Kanye, very cool!”

For West fans who didn’t share his enthusiasm, however, the posts became too much. By the time West had posted a photo of a screenshot of the president’s tweet, he had apparently lost 9 million followers, going from 27.8 million to 18.6 million. Screenshots of West’s dwindling follower count began to circulate on Twitter, and while some called the drop a glitch, more and more refreshed pages showed the newly lowered number.

Others, of course, speculated that West was being punished for his views by some sort of “deep state” or “Twitter police.”

“His page is being tempered [sic] with,” one person wrote. “Twitter got caught”.

While people debated the legitimacy of West’s follower drop-off, there was no doubt that he sparked an outrage online. West’s supporters were distraught over his overt support of the embattled president, and his wife, Kim Kardashian, struggled to control the damage.

West first voiced his support for President Trump in 2015, though many of his fans have tried to ignore it. As the Trump campaign gained traction, West announced his intention to run for president himself in 2020, though she soon changed the plan to 2024, implying his hope that President Trump will serve two terms.

West even met with Trump in Trump Tower on Dec. 13, 2016, according to a report by USA Today. He and the then-president-elect discussed “bullying, supporting teachers, modernizing curriculum, and violence in Chicago,” West’s hometown.

West later deleted all of his pro-Trump tweets in February of 2017, admitting that he hadn’t actually voted, though he would have cast his ballot for Trump if he had. Sources close to West told TMZ at the time that he was not pleased with the president’s travel ban on Muslim people, among other executive actions. However, after a troubled year, West returned to the spotlight this month as pro-Trump as ever.