It's been months since Kanye West has been on Instagram, and his triumphant Valentine's Day return yesterday was just as deliberate and on-brand as everything else he does. This time, something was very obvious was missing.
Ye spent hours posting dozens of famous couples from pop culture's past and present, including Diddy and Jennifer Lopez, Barack and Michelle Obama, the Kennedys, Faith Evans and the Notorious B.I.G., and of course, two snaps of himself and his wife Kim Kardashian posted after a vintage shot of Kim's parents, Kris Jenner and Robert Kardashian. Out of all of the famous couples he shared, most notably absent were Beyoncé and Jay Z, his maybe-former-but-who-really-knows friends and long-time collaborators.
Obviously, people noticed. There are tons of other couples Kanye could have left out that would have flown under the radar, but to skip out on posting one of the most powerful couples in music is going to get at least a side-eye.
Despite the problems between him and Jay, it always seemed like Kanye just wanted to go back to the good days. Jay even implied their rift can be fixed on an episode of the Rap Radar podcast from last year, even after Kanye name-checked both Beyoncé and Blue Ivy onstage in one of his rants. "He knows that he crossed the line. ...We've never let this much space go between one of our disagreements, and we've had many," Hov said. "Kanye's my little brother. We've gotten past bigger issues."
In any event, people on Twitter definitely realized there was no sign of the Carters anywhere on his page, and didn't hold back.