Malayalam actress Priya Prakash Varrier has garnered eyeballs in a short duration like no one has before. Known as the Wink sensation, she dominated the social media trends for almost a week after a video from her upcoming movie released earlier this month. The girl winked her way into the hearts of millions making her an internet sensation overnight. Her eyebrow antics and wink in the song 'Manikya Malaraya Poovi' from yet to be released Malayalam film 'Oru Adaar Love' made the internet go week on their knees.  Her increasing popularity gained her fans quite quickly on social media, especially Instagram. And now the 18-year-old now has a whopping 4.5 million followers on Instagram which established actors and other celebrities haven't been able to get. In fact, Priya Prakash has more followers than Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg who also owns Instagram.

While Mark has 4 million followers on the photo-sharing app, Priya has more half a million followers than him. However, Priya would found it hard to beat Mark's Facebook following which is more than 100 million. Her popularity grew so much so that for a brief duration, she was searched more than adult star turned actor Sunny Leone.

Photo Credits: Priya Prakash Varrier Instagram

Soon after everything about Priya went viral, she found herself in the middle of controversy after a Hyderabad youth filed a complaint against the video song in which she appeared. Two more FIRs were later filed in the same incident at different places. Later, Priya moved the Supreme Court seeking quashing of an FIR lodged against her in Telangana. While the 'wink' song received a record 34 million views, an FIR was lodged against her and the filmmakers for hurting religious sentiments of Muslims.

Photo Credits: Mark Zuckerberg Instagram

Manikya Malaraya Poovi is a Muslim folk song of Malabar region of Kerala which was written in 1978 by PMA Jabbar praising the love between Prophet Mohammed and his first wife Khadeeja. As per reports, filming of the song is yet to be completed and an amount of Rs 1.5 crore have been spent on it. Priya is a B.Com student from a college in Thrissur district of Kerala.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 21, 2018 12:23 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).