I am trying to add items to my NotifyIcon context menu like this:

notifyIcon = new()
{
    Icon = Resources.NotifyIcon,
    ContextMenuStrip = new()
    {
        Items = { { "Exit", Resources.Exit, Exit } }
    },
    Visible = true
};

For some reason, the image will always have a very subtle gray background. This happens even if I set the image to null.

However, if I set its BackColor to anything, even if to its original value, the gray background disappears:

notifyIcon = new()
{
    Icon = Resources.NotifyIcon,
    ContextMenuStrip = new()
    {
        Items = { { "Exit", Resources.Exit, Exit } }
    },
    Visible = true
};
Debug.WriteLine(notifyIcon.ContextMenuStrip.Items[0].BackColor.ToArgb());
notifyIcon.ContextMenuStrip.Items[0].BackColor = Color.FromArgb(255, 240, 240, 240);
Debug.WriteLine(notifyIcon.ContextMenuStrip.Items[0].BackColor.ToArgb());

The Debug.WriteLine calls are there to verify that it is still the same color before and after I set the color.

Although this fixes the problem, it feels very hacky. What is the root cause of this problem, and is there a better way to solve this?