MAFS star busted 'buying fake Instagram followers from Iran and Turkey'

Married At First Sight's Nasser Sultan took to Instagram over the weekend to boast about reaching a milestone 100,000 followers on the platform, claiming this was down to him “being real”.

However, Yahoo Lifestyle can reveal that the season five groom's sudden jump in popularity isn't exactly as it seems and his new fans are actually fake bot followers.

An audit of his account by Social Blade shows Nasser has consistently lost followers every day for several months now, but on September 1 somehow gained 14,400 new fans.

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The sudden influx took Nasser's account from 91,812 to 106,212 in just 24 hours, but since then he has gone back to consistently losing several hundred followers a day, dropping by 1049 to 105,163 at present.

The 56-year-old's most recent Instagram post has also received just under 50 likes, which means only 0.04% of his followers are engaged with his content.

Yahoo Lifestyle revealed in September 2022 that almost half of Nasser's followers were bots, mostly based in Turkey and Iran.

From August 2021 to August 2022, the self-proclaimed social commentator's following more than doubled from 42,000 to 88,500.

Instagram users often buy fake bot followers from ‘follow farms’ to make themselves look more popular, and you can buy 5,000 fake followers for as little as $39.99 on some websites.

It is unclear whether Nasser bought the fake followers himself or if someone purchased them for him.

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When asked for comment, Nasser told Yahoo Lifestyle at the time: “If someone can buy me or show me how to obtain them I’ll be happy to take them.

“Maybe I should put out a video asking people to show me how? Because apparently if you have lots you can become an influencer.”

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