AMANDA PLATELL: Photos of bleary-eyed Harry and schmoozing Meghan at Kris Jenner’s birthday bash have mysteriously disappeared… and I think I know the highly embarrassing reason why

The attendance of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex at Kris Jenner’s star-studded 70th birthday bash – held at Jeff Bezos’s $165million Beverly Hills mansion – hardly went under the radar.

Paparazzi photos of Harry clutching wife Meghan’s hand as they arrived at Momma Kardashian’s no-expenses-spared do were instantly beamed across the world. And they certainly didn’t escape the notice of those back in Blighty, juxtaposed as they were with pictures published on the same day of a solemn Royal Family at the Albert Hall. A radiant Princess Catherine, recovering from cancer, joined the King at the Festival of Remembrance to commemorate those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

Meanwhile, Harry and a beatific Meghan – who had clearly decided to leave her poppy at home – were partying at reality TV star Kris’s James Bond-themed birthday alongside Amazon boss Bezos and his wife Lauren Sanchez, Facebook tycoon Mark Zuckerberg, singers Beyonce, Mariah Carey, Justin Bieber, Stevie Wonder and Alicia Keys as well as Meg’s best pal and chat show host Oprah Winfrey.

And soon enough, their antics on that night were made plain to see. Yesterday Kris and her daughter Kim Kardashian posted a series of snaps of the night on Instagram for their collective 406 million followers to see.

One, published on Kim’s Instagram, showed the reality star sporting a bedazzled purple Balmain two-piece – alongside Meghan – in a black long-sleeved top and matching maxi skirt – posing together and smiling for the camera.

Other pictures on Kris’s page showed her sandwiched, splendid in a strapless red gown, between Harry and a pouting Meghan; Meghan giggling as she placed her hand on Kris’s shoulder, while a bleary-eyed Harry gazed at the pair, and a final picture showing Meghan greeting the boss of Netflix, Reed Hastings, with a hug.

Yet, as quickly as they had been uploaded, those photographs disappeared – apparently deleted by both Kris and Kim.

As masterminds of social media and their own, meticulously curated public presence, it is almost inconceivable that Kris or Kim ‘accidentally’ posted the pictures on Instagram. After all, they must have been delighted to have landed the Sussexes’ attendance at the 70th celebrations.

So was it pressure from the Sussexes that led to those particular images being deleted?

According to some reports, the couple personally asked for the ‘unapproved’ photos to be deleted and were ‘furious’ that they went up without permission.

‘They were polite but firm – nothing goes online without their sign-off,’ one source explained. ‘They’ve built their brand on control, and they weren’t about to let a Kardashian post ruin that.’

Which brings me to the question: why might Team Sussex want these photos of themselves hastily scrubbed from the internet? After all, images of other attendees from the night remain online, for all to see.

As an attendee at the Kardashian event has revealed, Meghan was ‘definitely in networking mode, schmoozing with a lot of power players’.

Indeed, some might consider the photo of the Duchess of Sussex sucking up to the CEO of Netflix after the streaming platform decided not to renew her and Harry’s $150million deal highly embarrassing.

Perhaps it finally dawned upon Harry and his grasping wife that boogying with the great and good of LA while his nation wept for their war dead was not a good look. Especially when he is reported to be desperately trying to rekindle his links with the Royal Family – part of a secretive PR exercise nicknamed Project Thaw – and win back the affections of the British public and his father King Charles, 76, as he battles his own cancer.

Or could the couple simply have been appalled when they saw Kris’s highly unflattering shots and used all the resources at their disposal to have them immediately deleted? After all, Meghan was hardly pictured from her best angles, while legendary party boy Harry perhaps looked a little worse for wear.

Whatever the reasons, one does have to wonder how Harry got himself into this mess. He is meant to have a serious communications team to advise him of the optics of attending any engagement like this.

So why would the famously privacy-obsessed Duke allow himself to be dragged to the biggest celebrity party of the year – especially on Remembrance weekend? You only need to look at Meghan, arriving without a poppy and revelling in the company of LA’s biggest stars, to know the answer.

Does she not realise her husband once had a distinguished military career – deployed twice on active duty in Afghanistan and once known as Captain General of the Royal Marines – and now is hugging a Kardashian where once he would be at the heart of sombre proceedings at The Cenotaph? It shows everything about her character and contempt for Britain’s Royal Family and traditions into which she willingly married, then ruthlessly monetised.

It seems to me that Megs must have leapt at the invitation to the lavish Kardashian bash, considering it a great photo op for her and her new acting career (it was announced this month that the Duchess is returning to acting after an eight-year hiatus to star in the Amazon MGM Studios film Close Personal Friends).

Eager to make Hollywood connections, she probably did not think of the optics back in Blighty – nor for her husband, who by many accounts is desperate to reconcile with his family and return home one day.

Something about those photos released after the fact appears to have unnerved the Sussexes. I can only hope that it was Harry, remembering his lifelong duty was once to King and Country – not Tinseltown – and saying ‘enough already’ to his wife for once.

Sadly, I doubt it.

Worse, I fear that the trodden-down Duke will continue to whimper through the rest of his life, humiliated by his wife’s disrespect for the traditions of the Royal Family and forced to endure poppycock, poppyless occasions like the one on Saturday night.