Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s "Despacito" video on YouTube has reached a record of 5 billion views. This makes it the first video on the platform to reach that number.
The video has increased by one billion views in the last six months alone.
"The day we shot the video, and I don't know how many videos I've done, you could see the crew and the dancers and everybody enjoying the song. It was like no other video," said Luis Fonsi about his experience filming the record-smashing video.
“I was home with my family and I woke up one morning with this idea. I grabbed my guitar and ran into the studio. I had a clear picture of how I heard it in my head and I jotted down as much as I could.”
"People were dancing on the streets when nobody was filming. Normally you would get somebody saying, 'Can you please shut it off until we go back to filming again?' But here, people were asking to leave it on. That was the first sign, right there."
Celebrating the video's 5 billion views, Luis Fonsi shared on Instagram:
After spending weeks on top of Billboard's Top 100 and becoming the song of the year and record of the year at the 2017 Latin Grammy Awards, Despacito claimed the title as most-viewed YouTube video of all-time last August when it reached 3 billion views, and was #1 on YouTube’s ranking of music videos for 2017.
This was after the video surpassed the previous record holders: South Korea’s Psy for "Gangnam Style" (famously known as the first to earn 1 billion views) and Wiz Khalifa’s “See You Again” featuring Charlie Puth, which topped "Gangnam Style” in July 2017.
The music video was published to YouTube on January 12, 2017, by Universal Music Latino, and was directed by Carlos Perez and shot in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in December 2016.
Fonsi also shares “Despacito” writing credits with Erika Ender, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber, as well as co-producers Andres Torres and Mauricio Rengifo.
