Kim Kardashian and Kris Jenner delete photos of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry

The great royal disappearing act – Meghan and Prince Harry vanish from Kris Jenner’s 70th birthday bash photos

Both Kim and Kris removed all photos of Meghan and Prince Harry from their respective Instagram accounts.

Kris Jenner’s 70th birthday was meant to be the celebrity event of the year. It was held at Jeff Bezos’ Calabasas LA home. A night dripping in diamonds, champagne and more famous faces than an Oscars after-party. Everyone who’s anyone in Hollywood turned up to celebrate the ultimate momager Kris. Oprah, Mariah Carey, Beyoncé, Hailey and Justin Bieber, Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys were there and more famous faces. And for a very brief, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment — Harry and Meghan were there too.

Yes that Harry and Meghan. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, casually mingling in Calabasas. For about 12 hours, eagle-eyed fans spotted them smiling in a few posts on Kim and Kris’s pages. Then — poof — the photos were gone. Deleted, vanished, scrubbed cleaner than publicist clears all online scandals for their celebrity client. It is a bit of a Streisand effect now because those photos are out there. And everybody is talking about them and the fact they were removed. Ohhh. Mysterious. Or maybe not.

So what really happened? Why were Meghan and Harry there in the first place? And more importantly, why were they digitally erased from history faster than you can say “damage control”?

Let’s unpack the most likely and most hilarious explanations.

The PR panic

Apparently, what started as a “casual gathering” quickly became a full-blown brand war. Each guest had a PR team, a lighting consultant, and at least one publicist on standby. According to founding whisperers of the inside world, there was a group-chat meltdown when the photos surfaced.

Meghan’s team reportedly wanted to vet every caption. Harry’s rep insisted images couldn’t imply any royal endorsement of tequila shots or balloon arches. Meanwhile, Kris’ people were just trying to make sure “Kris Jenner” was spelt correctly in all the tags. The compromise? Delete first, negotiate later. It just ensured this event and the photo deletions would get maximum exposure. The PR may have been a panic but it reached the desired effect. More publicity for Meghan and Harry. It doesn’t matter that it’s bad publicity, because as they say, all publicity si good publicity,

The freshest twist: the photo removal demand by Meghan

Another angle: the timing. The party coincided with the UK’s Remembrance Day (November 11) and Harry, wearing a poppy, was in the photo. Celeb spies say the deletion was partly out of respect for those observances. And partly because the Sussexes didn’t want to piss off the royal family while they’re trying to reconcile.

Meanwhile, the Kardashians are apparently fuming. Kim is reportedly “baffled” that the Sussexes demanded photos be removed. After all, they’d already appeared publicly at another event the same night. “Kim was like ‘you’ve been photographed outside and at Baby2Baby – what’s the problem?’” a source said.

So now we have brand control, royal optics and reality-TV drama all tangled in one Instagram carousel.

The bad photos

You have to admit Kim Kardashian looks amazing. Standing next to her, Meghan Markle looks like a dowdy, slightly chubby housewife attending her rich husband’s famous friends party. Kim in her purple outfit stands out like a shining star. Meghan on the other hand, looks like she has no fashion sense. And the other surprising thing to note is that Meghan is really short! Who would have known that without her standing next to Kim who is 5’2″. So maybe Meghan didn’t want people to see how bad lighting makes her look bad. And she didn’t want people to see that she is such a shortie. But whatever the case may be, it’s not a great look.

The royal retreat

After the photo fiasco, the Sussexes were reportedly “discreetly ushered out” before the conga line began. Meghan allegedly took a few cupcakes “for the kids,” while Harry asked if the valet could bring around the Range Rover “before the drones start again.” They were last seen heading toward Montecito, where no doubt, a lengthy PR meeting followed.

Disapproval by Sussex fans

One last theory is virulent Sussex fans, who love Meghan especially, were disappointed to see Meghan with Kim Kardashian. There’s a lot of chatter on social media about this. Many saying they still support Meghan and Harry but were upset about the Kardashian connection. Don’t they realise Meghan is thirsty for high powered friends who can help her become a billionaire. She clearly looks up to Kim and momager Kris for their business nous. The more Meghan associates with the rich and powerful in Hollywood, the more her fans will be disappointed in her.