A photo of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry taken at a glitzy party with Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos has been mysteriously removed from the Getty Images website, Page Six has learned.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex attended the Beef Season 2 Montecito Tastemaker event last Friday with Sarandos, 61, and his wife Nicole Avant, 58, at their expansive home in Montecito, California.
Markle, 44, wore a $715 chartreuse Gail dress by Heidi Merrick, while Harry, 41, looked dashing in a navy blue suit and posed for photos with Sarandos and Avant.
Photos previously published by Page Six and other online outlets showed the Duchess laughing with Sarandos and hugging her best friend, Avant.
The photos were taken by a Getty photographer, but sources told Page Six that Netflix asked the agency selling the images to news organizations to remove them the morning after the event.
All that remains on the Getty site now is one photo of Sarandos and Avant, and one of Markle in a crowd that included singer Katy Perry, former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Beef star Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan and Charles Melton.
Sources say at least three photos were removed because they were of poor quality. However, the photo still appears in the existing article, which includes six pages.
We have reached out to Netflix and representatives for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex for comment.
This is not the first time Markle and Prince Harry, who are currently on a fake royal tour of Australia, have been embroiled in a photo mystery.
The couple were photographed on Kris Jenner’s 70th birthday last November, but her representative only asked that the photo be removed from Jenner and her daughter Kim Kardashian’s Instagram accounts. Sources initially said the Sussexes had opted for a “no photography” disclaimer for their guests, but Jenner’s representatives have only denied that this had happened.
“It was so innocent. It’s so crazy,” Kim said on her sister Khloé Kardashian’s “Khloé in Wonderland” podcast in January.
Kim, 45, added, “Mom and Meghan have been friends for several years and have a really sweet relationship.”
Kim said she looked at photos from Jenner’s star-studded 70th birthday party to decide which snaps to post online.
“We were told it was a really cool thing to post, and I think after we posted, they realized it was Memorial Day and didn’t want to be seen at the party. It was then deleted, even though it had already been posted,” Kim recalled of the Sussexes.
“And I think they realized, ‘Oh, this is so stupid,'” she added.
Kim said it might have been “okay” for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to be photographed at the Baby to Baby gala that night, but “it might not have been okay to party or dance on the dance floor or anything like that.”
“So we removed the holiday to honor Memorial Day,” she said of the holiday honoring fallen service members.
The Sussexes are neighbors in Montecito with Sarandos, a former US ambassador to the Bahamas, who are said to remain friends despite Markle’s lifestyle show, Meghan Markle, not returning for a third season on Netflix, and Markle parting ways with the streamer for her “business as usual” lifestyle series.
Last month, Variety reported that Ms. Sarandos joked that she would not answer Ms. Markle’s phone calls without a lawyer present. This was flatly denied by Netflix and the Sussexes’ lawyers.
Sources said that while the streamer’s staff is furious with Markle, Sarandos remains a champion.
“Honestly, there are some people[at Netflix]who don’t want to work with Meghan and Harry – they’re fed up – but Ted is always willing to give them another chance,” said one industry insider.
Prince Harry and Markle, who have a first-look deal with Netflix, are currently producing a polo-based drama series for Netflix through their company Archewell Productions.
