Beyonce breaks Selena Gomez's Instagram record with pregnancy announcement

Beyonce has beaten Selena Gomez's record for the most liked picture on Instagram, following her announcement that she's pregnant with twins.

The Halo hitmaker, who is married to rap legend Jay Z, real name Shawn Carter, took to the photo-sharing site on Wednesday (01Feb17) to post a picture of herself posing in a bra, panties, and a veil as she cradled her growing baby bump.

"We would like to share our love and happiness," she wrote in the caption. "We have been blessed two times over. We are incredibly grateful that our family will be growing by two, and we thank you for your well wishes. - The Carters."

Less than eight hours after posting the snap Beyonce had garnered 6.33 million likes from fans and 334,000 comments. Those numbers are now up to 7.1 million likes and 360,000 comments - significantly overtaking Selena's previous record of 6.3 million likes and 250,000 comments for an Instagram sponsored picture of herself sipping a bottle of Coca-Cola last June.

Despite breaking one of Selena's records, Beyonce has yet to overtake her in the amount of followers she has on Instagram. Hands to Myself star boasts 108 million followers, compared to Beyonce's 92.9. The Crazy in Love star is also beaten by Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande in the size of their followings, with the singers having 96.8 million and 95.4 million followers respectively.

Beyonce's post set Twitter alight as well, peaking at 17,000 tweets about her happy news every minute.

Following her announcement, the former Destiny's Child singer's mother Tina Lawson also took to Instagram to share the Beyonce picture, and added to fans she is thrilled the news is now public knowledge.

"WOW I don’t have to keep the secret anymore," she wrote. "I am soooo happy God is so good twin blessings. Thank you for all your well wishing beautiful messages. I appreciate them soo much."