Rihanna snatches Justin Bieber's YouTube crown

Justin Bieber has had his YouTube crown snatched away by Rihanna, who now has more views than any other artist in the world on her official channel (RihannaVEVO).

The Bajan superstar has accumulated over 3.47 billion views while Bieber has fallen behind by around 4 million views on his main channel (JustinBieberVEVO), according to Starcount's social media leaderboard.

Justin Bieber was the first person to reach 3 billion views back in October 2012, with Rihanna following hot on his heels. Impressively, the 'Umbrella' singer closed a gap of 150 million views since Starcount reported Bieber's milestone.

Rihanna's recent video 'Stay' may be accountable for her popularity surge, as it has amassed almost 40 million views in the last two weeks. It is now a two-horse race at the top of YouTube, with Lady Gaga dropping behind Eminem in fourth place with 2.2 billion views.

Rihanna can now claim to be the most popular person on both Facebook and YouTube although she still has some way to go before she can catch up to Bieber on Twitter. The 'Baby' singer reached the 35 million follower mark earlier this week while Rihanna is currently followed by 28.5 million Twitter users. With a new video soon to be released with fellow Canadian and Rihanna's ex-boyfriend Drake, it might not be long before Bieber claims back his YouTube throne.

Top Ten Artists on Youtube
Artist (Channel) Number of YouTube views
Rihanna (RihannaVEVO) 3,473,009,875
Justin Bieber (JustinBieberVEVO) 3,468,086,137
Eminem (EminemVEVO) 2,271,010,123
Lady Gaga (LadyGagaVEVO) 2,212,935,653
PSY (officialpsy) 1,971,319,786
Shakira (shakiraVEVO) 1,894,218,310
Beyonce (beyonceVEVO) 1,754,696,052
Chris Brown (ChrisBrownVEVO) 1,500,251,228
The Black Eyed Peas (BlackEyedPeasVEVO) 1,485,409,286
Jennifer Lopez (JenniferLopezVEVO) 1,477,864,165