Telly fool Mr Bean is one of the top Facebook stars with 74MILLION likes — beating Taylor Swift, Katy Perry and Manchester United
Mr Bean has become a favourite in China despite Facebook being banned there
COMEDY character Mr Bean has become an unlikely social media hit — overtaking Taylor Swift and Manchester United’s official pages on Facebook.
The verified account for the largely-mute bungling man-child, played by Rowan Atkinson, 62, has now reached more than 74.4million likes on the website.
This means Bean is narrowly pipping global pop star Taylor, 27, to 14th place in the Facebook popularity rankings, having also recently overtaken football giants United.
The page has gained nearly a million likes in the last month alone — with more than 210 million views on its videos in the same timeframe.
And it looks soon likely to overtake the official page dedicated to the deceased King of Pop Michael Jackson.
Mr Bean has been a global phenomenon for years, enjoying huge popularity around the world in places such as the Far East and Europe.
The page combines short clips from the cartoon series as well as the TV show and films in which the title character was played by Durham-born Atkinson.
In recent months the animated character even appeared on a Facebook Live video stream to interact with fans in a game of charades.
Former Manchester United star Cristiano Ronaldo’s page is the social network’s most successful with an amazing 122m likes.
Also among those in the top ten are his club Real Madrid, pop star Shakira, 40, Barcelona, actor Vin Diesel, 50, and footballer Lionel Messi, 30.
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Atkinson is bringing back the character for a Chinese film called Top Funny Comedian — but the film will only be released in China.
Mr Bean’s total likes could be much higher as Facebook is banned in the communist state, where the character is huge.
His last appearance in a film was in 2007’s Mr Bean’s Holiday, an international hit that won a huge audience in the Far East.
In recent years Mr Bean appeared during the Olympics opening ceremony in 2012, and for a one-off sketch for Comic Relief in 2015.