*Eminem is also the third person in history to achieve 1bn views on his official YouTube channel

MUMBAI: Famecount.com, the social media statistics service, announced Eminem as the world's most popular living person on Facebook. The US rapper claims the crown after reaching 29m Facebook fans or â€?likes', overtaking Lady Gaga in a closely contested and long drawn out battle. Less than 1m fans have separated the two stars for more than two months. Only one person retains more Facebook popularity than Eminem - the late Michael Jackson, currently at over 29m fans, although at current rates of fan growth, even the King of Pop looks unlikely to retain his lead 

Lady Gaga herself ruled Facebook for eight months, having taken the crown from Barack Obama on June 25th 2010. Obama has since dropped to 12th place among stars on the network 

Eminem's new milestone comes just three days after the Recovery star became the third person in history to achieve 1bn views on his official YouTube channel. Only Twitter has shown some resistance to Eminem's astonishing digital reach. With just over 3m followers, Eminem is in 31st place and a long way behind Twitter Queen Lady Gaga on 8.4m followers 

Despite the new milestone, on an aggregated basis Famecount.com still ranks Eminem the third most popular star on social media, behind Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber - thanks to these stars' greater reach on Twitter and YouTube. Groovecount.com, which also includes measures of fame across music digital services, places Eminem second after Lady Gaga.

Daniel Dearlove, founder of Famecount commented This new landmark follows a spectacular year for Eminem, with the release of Recovery and wins at the Grammys matched by surging social media fame. Although Eminem cannot afford complacency. Lady Gaga knows how to command attention and the release of Born this Way puts her back in the spotlight. Meanwhile Rihanna is one to watch - currently the fastest growing star on Facebook....