Friday belonged to Virat Kohli and Instagram’s newest obsession, LizLaz. The cricketer, who runs the most-followed Indian Instagram account with 276 million followers, briefly liked one of her posts before unliking it, triggering a fresh round of ‘likegate’ chatter online, after a similar incident with actor Avneet Kaur last year. Memes, throwbacks, and speculation followed in minutes.

Caught in the middle of the frenzy, German vlogger-musician LizLaz says the attention caught her off guard. “It was crazy because I woke up and then I was all over the news,” she tells us in an exclusive chat, adding, “I don’t even know when he liked the picture, I learnt through the news. So many people found the articles on me and sent them in my DMs; they were super excited.”

The buzz has also revived an old clip where she admits being a Kohli fan. Her connection to cricket, she says, began during a trip to India last year. “I was born in South Africa but brought up in Germany, where the national sport is only football,” she shares. “Then I started watching IPL with my friends in Bengaluru... It was contagious and I also became an RCB fan. And obviously, if you support RCB, Virat Kohli is the most exciting player to watch. So I was happy about him liking the picture.”

As for the unlike? she isn’t reading too much into it. “No, I felt a bit sorry for him actually! I don’t even know how it became such a big story. But I am grateful for him liking my pic.”

Actor Taniya Chatterjee claims cricketer Yuzvendra Chahal has sent her a defamation notice after a video of her sharing his alleged Instagram DM went viral. Chahal’s team has also confirmed the legal notice. In the clip, Taniya said he called her “cute”, sparking online chatter. Later, she said she didn’t expect it to “go so viral” and called the legal move “ridiculous”, maintaining she did not intend to malign him. She also alleged his PR team asked her to delete the video.