Lady Gaga has crowned herself the “Queen of Twitter” after overtaking Britney Spears to become the world’s most popular Twitter user.

The singer achieved the feat on Saturday (August 21), and as of Monday morning (August 23) had 5,728,955 followers.

Spears, who had held the crown for months, has already fallen well behind Lady Gaga, with just 5,697,805 followers.

In a video message, Lady Gaga said: "Hello world, this is Lady Gaga, queen of Twitter. I wanted to thank all my beautiful little monsters for following me. Thank you for beginning my reign as Twitter queen.”

The video was shot backstage at a gig in Tacoma, Washington, which formed part of the North American leg of her Monster Ball Tour.

Lady Gaga currently gains an average of 171,403 new followers every week.

Actor Ashton Kutcher is the third biggest Twitter user, while musicians Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift also have over three million followers each.

Lady Gaga recently became the first living person to gain more than 10 million Facebook fans. She has since crossed the 16 million mark.

Eminem and US president Barack Obama have since achieved the feat.

(by Jason Gregory)