Indian cricket icon Virat Kohli is once again at the center of a social media storm, but this time it has nothing to do with his batting. On April 17, 2026, eagle-eyed fans spotted that Kohli’s official handle had “liked” a bold photo of German-South African influencer LizLaz.
The interaction immediately went viral, largely because Kohli does not follow the influencer, and the “like” was found on a post from January.
LizLaz Reacts
The influencer at the center of the buzz, LizLaz, who holds a Master’s in Psychology and is a self-proclaimed RCB fan, finally broke her silence on the controversy. Speaking to Hindustan Times, she expressed a mix of excitement and sympathy for the cricketer.
“No, I felt a bit sorry for him actually!,” says Liz to HT, “I was so happy that he liked it, but then him unliking it, I felt a bit bad for him because I don’t even know how it became such a big story. How did people notice, how did they make it news that was probably not his intention behind it, but still I am grateful for it and I appreciate the support from him.”
“It was crazy because I woke up and then I was all over the news. I don’t even know when he liked the picture, I learnt through the news. So many people found the articles done on me on many different platforms and sent them to me in my DMs. I got so many messages today, people were super excited about it,” said LizLaz to Hindustan Times.
She added that she became a fan of the Royal Challengers Bengaluru last year while watching games with friends in India, calling Kohli the “most exciting player to watch.”
“It was obviously the IPL last year, so I started watching with my Bangalorean friends. It was contagious. I was also becoming a Royal Challengers Bangalore fan. And obviously, if you support RCB, Virat Kohli is the most exciting player to watch. He’s just so good. So I was happy about him liking the picture,” said LizLaz.
“Algorithm” Meme Returns
Social media was instantly flooded with memes, with many fans jokingly predicting a “long paragraph” coming soon on Kohli’s Instagram Stories. This is a callback to a 2025 incident involving actress Avneet Kaur, where Kohli issued a public clarification attributing an accidental “like” to a glitch while clearing his feed.
“Bhai, iss algorithm ka kuch karna padega” (Brother, we need to do something about this algorithm) became the trending joke of the night.
Shortly after the screenshots began circulating and the topic started trending on X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit, the “like” was removed from the post.
