Last November, on the eve of Remembrance Sunday, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were out and about in LA. They attended the Baby2Baby gala, where Serena Williams was honored (H&M are tight with Serena). Afterwards, Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan did what many of the gala attendees did: they went straight to Kris Jenner’s 70th birthday party, which was held at Jeff Bezos’ enormous mansion. The photos of Harry and Meghan walking in and out of the party, hand in hand, landed in the UK on the morning of Remembrance Sunday. As you can imagine, royalists were FURIOUS! Furious about everything, especially the fact that the Sussexes are invited to those high-profile Hollywood parties.

The next day, Monday, the Kardashian-Jenners posted photos to Instagram from Kris’s party, and Kris and Kim Kardashian both included photos of Harry and Meghan. Another round of fury, only the story was extended because Kim and Kris quickly removed the Sussex photos without explanation. What followed was WEEKS of speculation about who said what and why and the Kardashians are furious at Harry & Meghan, and the Sussexes are mad that the Kardashians posted the photos to social media in the first place and all of this just proves that Hollywood hates the Sussexes! The Mail was literally still screaming and crying about that over Christmas. Well, this week, Kim appeared on Khloe’s podcast, and they ended up talking about what really went down.

Soon after Kris and Kim posted the Sussexes’ photos, the photos were deleted. At the time, rumors abounded about what happened, from reports that Harry and Meghan “declined photo-sharing consent” (per People) to another report declaring that “there were no consent forms” at the November 8 bash. On the January 28 episode of Khloé Kardashian’s podcast “Khloé in Wonderland,” Kim set the record straight about what really happened at the party—and why the photos were deleted.

“The Photogate,” Khloé teed up. “The Photogate from mom’s 70th.” To this, Kim responded, “It was really innocent, which is so crazy. Mom and Meghan have been friends for some years now. And they have a really sweet relationship. We took a photo… And then I think we were all going through them. We’re all communicating about what we’re going to post. We’re never ones to post without permission. We are, like—it’s not who we are.”

“We’re very respectful,” Khloé interjected.

Kim continued, “We have the craziest, funnest photos from that night, you know, but we were posting just, like, fun photos,” to which Khloé added, “Dignified photos.”

“And so we were totally, you know—we were told that it was totally cool to post,” Kim said. “And then after it was posted, I think they realized it was Remembrance Day, and they didn’t want to be seen at a party, even though it’s already up, you know, and then taken down. And then I think they realized, like, oh, this was so silly.”

Khloé then mentioned that Harry and Meghan “did Baby2Baby right before,” referring to the Baby2Baby Gala the Duke and Duchess of Sussex attended before heading over to Jenner’s party. The gala is an annual fundraiser for mothers and children living in poverty, and Meghan’s longtime friend Serena Williams was chosen as the honoree at last November’s event.

“Well, it’s like a charity event,” Kim added of the gala. “So, like, that was fine, but maybe not partying and dancing on the dance floor or whatever. So we took them down to respect Remembrance Day. And then, like, you got to laugh at, like, the situation sometimes and just, like, lighten it up and be if everyone’s taking it the wrong way, like, lean in. I was like, ‘We should do a full Skims campaign.’ Take the photo—even just us, like, I’ll shoot you at mom, you know, post it and then delete it, like, 30 minutes later. And then say, ‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t have permission to post those photos for the campaign.’”

“You should do that,” Khloé said, to which Kim responded, “That’s what I was like—that would have hit, so funny.”

“If we just made it light and made it funny, you know, I think it would have been, like, received differently, but I hated how that was received for everyone,” Kim continued of the controversy. “That sucks.” She added, “It was just made into something that was so crazy and ridiculous that just didn’t have to be.”

[From InStyle]

Yeah, I suspected it was something like this, where Harry and Meghan or their team requested the takedown but it wasn’t some huge issue, nor were the Kardashians furious with the Sussexes. I think Kim is correct that H&M realized too late that asking for the photo removal would turn into a huge controversy. Which just shows something about how the Sussexes operate, I think. Like, they can still be kind of naive about the bigger picture and they have issues thinking a few steps ahead when it comes to these kinds of situations (another example: the Elle profile where Meghan was announced by her title in a nearly-empty house). They didn’t stop and think that “asking the Kardashians to remove a few photos” would immediately turn into a days/weeks/months-long controversy. Kim’s solution, to make a joke about it and keep it light, would have been fine. The better solution would have been just… not asking for the photos to be removed in the first place. People already knew that Harry and Meghan attended the party on Saturday, there were tons of photos of them outside the party, photos which landed on Remembrance Sunday. Just own it. There still would have been a controversy, but whatever.

Photos courtesy of Kim’s IG, Kris’s IG and Backgrid.