The CIA follows these 10 celebrities on Instagram - and they’ve all got one thing in common

The official Instagram account for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) follows a total of 35 people. And while the majority are US government organizations – interestingly, 10 of them are Hollywood stars.

The hand-picked few are Melissa McCarthy, Claire Daines, Ryan Reynolds, John Krasinski, Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Garner, Bryan Cranston, Ben Affleck, Tom Hanks and Pierce Brosnan. In addition, they also follow the official 007 page.

On the surface, it seems bizarre for such a high profile government account to follow a select few celebrities. As much as we’d like to dive headfirst into a world of conspiracies – the explanation is pretty basic, unfortunately.

It appears as though the CIA enjoy following A-listers who have played roles in the intelligence community. From Brosnan as James Bond to Reynolds in Safe House and McCarthy in Spy, one Twitter user accurately described the CIA as “a self-absorbed teenager.”

The CIA debuted their account back in April 2019 and has since racked up 394K followers in the past few years.

“Since many of our employee’s identities cannot be revealed, the public comes to know CIA and our officers through their spy movie and television show fictional counterparts — often more ‘reel’ than ‘real,’ said Nicole de Haay, CIA spokesperson.

“We like to play with this ‘Reel vs Real’ theme to explain how our global mission differs from big and small screen portrayals.”

People picked up the news and took to Twitter with their reactions.