Vatican launches probe after Pope Francis ‘likes’ raunchy model’s Instagram photo
The Vatican has launched an investigation into how the Pope’s Instagram account came to “like” a picture of a scantily clad Brazilian model.
It is unclear when the account “liked” the image of Natalia Garibotto, who was dressed up in a school uniform outfit.
In the photo, she is pushed against a high school locker with a very short plaid skirt, there is hardly any skirt elsewhere and with a white garter belt and her derriere is clearly visible.
Well under the photo, for a few hours, there were 114,000 “likes” including that of Franciscus, Pope Francis’ Instagram account.
“At least I’m going to heaven,” said Natalia Garibotto, after the apparent blessing from Pope Francis’ account of an image of her wearing school uniform-inspired stockings and suspenders was noticed nearly six weeks after she posted it.
News outlets first started reporting the develpment last Friday, before the image was “unliked” on the platform.
Officials in the Holy See are reportedly investigating how this could have happened on the Pope’s account.
“We can exclude that the ‘like’ came from the Holy See, and it has turned to Instagram for explanations,” a Vatican spokesperson told the Guardian newspaper on Thursday.
Pope Francis is hugely popular across social media, with his official Instagram account, which operates under the username Franciscus, attracting 7.4 million followers.
His Twitter account does not follow any account but the Pope is followed by 18.8 million accounts.
In 2017, he was the most popular world leader on the social media platform but he rarely composes social media content himself.