Fake Cristiano Ronaldo TikTok fools everyone before ban & now there’s a Messi copycat

A fake Cristiano Ronaldo account has, finally, been banned by TikTok after becoming one of the fastest-growing profiles on the app ever. And now a Lionel Messi profile is trying to replicate it.

TikTok might have started out as a platform solely for creatives and artists, but it has grown into something that plenty of social media users have to check out on a daily basis.

It’s become another outlet to share their daily lives and goings on, and, of course, celebrities are also getting involved. Whenever a new celebrity joins up and embraces a meme about themselves, their follower count usually shoots up massively. 

We’ve seen celebrities get to over 1 million followers within their first day, however, a Cristiano Ronaldo imposter had everyone fooled – including TikTok themselves too – as it became the fastest-growing account ever. 

Fake Cristiano Ronaldo TikTok success leads to Messi copycat

The account – named cristianoronaldo_nassrfc. – first appeared on TikTok on September 26. It began uploading highlights from the Portuguese superstar’s games in Saudi Arabia.

There were also videos of the imposter meeting fans intermixed with those highlights, making it seem like the real deal. A majority of videos shot up above 10 million views as the account’s follower number jumped to over 6.3 million. 

However, as NoahGlennCarter pointed out, the account has since been terminated after it’s massive success. The impersonation, plus uploading copyrighted highlights, probably made it pretty easy for TikTok to shut it down. However, it did appear that the account was being heavily pushed.

Naturally, there has also been an attempt from a Lionel Messi imposter too. That is aptly named LeoMessi_CFMiami, but it hasn’t garnered millions of followers like the Ronaldo one. 

That account has followed suit, posting two clips of highlights from Messi’s games at Inter Miami. It has only picked up 100,000 followers, but has already been called out as fake by viewers. It likely won’t be long before that is banned either.

The clue for these accounts being fake should be the name – high-profile stars are hardly going to have teams in their usernames. So, just be wary before hitting follow on them.