Hm ok, i would say you get rid of the “Remove All Widgets”. Because it may also kill the Joystick. To remove a specific widget, call “Remove from Parent” on it.
Also i would recommend spawning the Widgets in a Class that you can always access (For example GameState, PlayerState, PlayerController, etc.) and save the return
value as a reference. Then you can remove them if you want to open the menu.
But first, try to remove “Remove All Widgets” and check if the Joystick thing survives.