ACTRESS BOOTS OUT STRAY HUBBY, BOXER MEETS MATCH, BABY BLUES GROW SADDER
Kathoey comes up trumps
Actress and presenter Wimolphan “Jubjang” Chaleejunghan, who threw out her husband of 21 years after she caught him seeing a kathoey, says she is coming forward to help spare other women from the same fate.
Opening up about their ill-fated relationship last week, Jubjang said she and her TV producer husband, whom she did not name, were planning to put the seal on their 21-year relationship in December by marrying. They had registered their marriage but never wed.
However, she called it off after discovering he had been seeing a young katoey intern at the TV channel where they work, and had secretly taken her to Hong Kong.
“I want to support other women out there who may have been betrayed by their husbands, but are not sure if society will accept them. Life can go on...when I caught out my husband, I just wanted to die. But I realised I still had family and friends around who and supported me,” she said.
Jubjang, who won a prize as best supporting actress recently for her role in the TV soap Buppesannivas, said that on the day she accepted the prize, her husband was secretly seeing his fling in Hong Kong. Worse, they stayed at the same hotel where he had taken her on a romantic outing previously.
“He was gone three days and had told me he was going to scout locations in Khao Yai. I found out he cheated when my younger brother suggested I take a look in his computer notebook after we failed to hear from him for the first 24 hours. I found in his deleted files a copy of his plane ticket and a diary, written in nauseating detail, which he had exchanged with this kathoey.
“I knew his flight back and could have confronted him at the airport, but stayed away out of respect. When he came home my mother and I asked him where he had been. He refused to talk and finally I told him I knew he had been seeing the kathoey, whom I had met myself while making the lakorn.
“This is the third time I have caught him being unfaithful. When he strayed the other two times I begged him to stay as I couldn’t imagine life without him. This time, however, was more than I could stand. I asked myself if I had fallen down in my duties as his wife for him to treat me this way.
“We have built a life and family together, sharing good times and bad. I asked what all that meant to him and how he could let 20 years go by, deceiving me all this time about what he was truly like. I had many people enter my life while we were together. I never betrayed him, but he did me.
“He said he and the kathoey just clicked and asked jokingly whether she had cast a spell on him. He denied having sex with her, and claimed she just wanted to visit temples. Actually, I suspect they were at it from the very beginning,” she said. Jubjang threw him out of their home.
The actress said when they first met she had sounded out seniors in the industry about him. One cautioned that he had a “whiff” about him of being gay, and in fact once had an kathoey supporting him financially.
After he confronted her husband about his infidelity, Jubjang said he dropped her as a presenter at the TV channel where both work.
“I told him the kathoey leaves work early because she has another job in the Sukhumvit and Nana area, where she meets men for drinks. I suspect he is just her minor husband. Meanwhile, I rushed to get a blood test, as I didn’t know when he started being unfaithful.
“I made more money than he did, and gave him whatever he wanted. While he did not shout me anything, my husband was busy looking after this woman with my money, and selling things I had bought him to support her.”
Jubjang said she agreed to sell his Harley and other items she had bought him and gave him the 200,000 baht proceeds, in return for which he had to agree to their divorce, which took effect in late May.
Initially angry with him, she later made merit and forgave his indiscretions. She said she is now enjoying the single life, but would ask the next man in her life to show more interest in her.
Laem has melting moment
World boxing champ Srisaket Sor Rungvisai brushes off claims he is rushing into marriage, after announcing his engagement to a young woman he met just two months before.
Laem, as he is also known, went before the media last week to discuss his lightning engagement to a Bangkok office worker after images emerged late last month of the pair getting engaged in her home province of Chumporn.
Contrary to earlier reports, his new love, Pornpimon Sarakaew — Nong Ja Jaa, or Nong Nuu Lek to her parents — 28, did not accompany him to the media outing at his boxing camp.
News of his engagement has shocked Laem’s fans, as it is only a couple of months since the messy parting with his girlfriend of 14 years, Patchareewan “Kay” Kanha, 30.
Kay announced in late May they had parted amicably, though acrimony soon followed amid family claims she had tried to milk him of his boxing earnings, and claims by her side that Laem was seeing another woman on the sly.
Talking to reporters last week, Laem, 30, said he and Ja Jaa met at an eatery and swapped numbers. As the relationship blossomed, he took her to Chumporn in late May and while there proposed they get engaged. He insisted he was not seeing Ja Jaa on the sly, as his relationship with Kay had already ended.
“I decided to get engaged to give Ja Jaa confidence and assure her that I wouldn’t discard her,” Laem said. Media reports said Laem gave Ja Jaa 500,000 baht and five baht weight in gold as engagement gifts, and that he has agreed on a 2 million baht dowry for her hand. “I have asked my parents to look for an auspicious date for the wedding, but we are likely to tie the knot after I have defended my title in October,” he said. Laem said he wanted to focus on boxing for now and planned to start a family after a couple of years.
“As for those who say it is happening too fast, when two people love each other, what can you do? I feel as if she is my soul mate. I still talk to my former partner as a friend. I wish her the best and hope she finds a good man.”
Captain in control
A teen TV star has made good on his threat to sue a young product presenter who claimed she was carrying his child, only to lose the pregnancy later.
Actor Cholatorn “Captain” Kongyingyong released an open letter to the media last week saying his family’s lawyer had started legal action against his former girlfriend, Sawaphat “Mynx” Soonthornan, 23.
Captain said his family and the production company which hires him had decided on the step to clear up doubts about the saga, which took a new twist late last month after Mynx claimed she had lost their unborn child which she earlier insisted Captain had refused to acknowledge.
Sceptical netizens asked if she was ever pregnant at all, after Mynx failed to present ultrasound images or other proof from the hospital, despite repeated requests from his family.
Captain’s lawyer has now lodged charges in the criminal and civil courts alleging Mynx defamed him and spread false information, after she accused the young actor in June of impregnating her but refusing to own up to it. The court set Oct 8 for the first hearing into Captain’s claims.
Posting on social media in his first public comments since both estranged families went before the media in June to discuss the saga, Captain said last week the public deserves to know what really happened.
“I don’t want anyone to have to go to jail, and nor am I seeking damages. I just want the truth. I am confident the justice system can get to it, and bring this saga to an end in a rightful way. If the court decides I am the party who did wrong, I am happy to accept the penalty for what I did,” he said.
He was sorry for what had happened and for letting down the public and his fans. ‘It’s been a giant life lesson for me,” he said.
Mynx has not added to her revelations last month that she lost the child, which she attributed to health problems,
stress and overwork.