I’m no child bride, says 40-year-old partner of diver Musk called ‘paedo’
THE PARTNER of a British cave diver yesterday dismissed yet another attack on him by controversial billionaire Elon Musk – pointing out that she was ‘no child bride’.
Woranan Ratrawiphukkun, who is 40, was responding to Mr Musk’s latest comments about Vernon Unsworth, who played a key role in the rescue of Thai schoolboys from flooded caves in July.
Mr Musk, who had accused Mr Unsworth of being ‘a pedo’ during the rescue, has renewed his baseless attack by telling a reporter to stop defending ‘child rapists’ and claimed Mr Unsworth had moved to Thailand for a ‘child bride who was about 12 years old at the time’.
Mr Unsworth, 63, and Miss Ratrawiphukkun met seven years ago, when she would have been at least 32. She runs a nail salon and lives with Mr Unsworth in the countryside near Chiang Rai – near the scene of the cave rescue. She said: ‘The news about him being married to a 12-year-old child is laughable. As of now, everything will proceed according to the law. Vern is a kind person.
‘He rarely has an argument with anyone, and everybody loves Vern. If he wasn’t a good man, we wouldn’t still be together.’
Asked if her partner would sue Mr Musk, she said: ‘I have no details. If your husband was accused of this, would you sue?’
Mr Unsworth was the first foreign rescuer on the scene of the cave drama. He had an intimate knowledge of the tunnel system in which the 12 schoolboys and their coach were trapped.
But he incurred Mr Musk’s wrath when he said a mini- submarine proposed by the tycoon to help in the rescue had ‘absolutely no chance of working’ and the offer was a publicity stunt.
Tesla boss Mr Musk called Mr Unsworth a ‘pedo’ on Twitter. He provided no evidence for this and later deleted the posts and apologised. However, he has continued the attack in astonishing emails to a Buzz Feed reporter. In the emails, which Mr Musk, 47, claimed were ‘off the record’ he said Mr Unsworth was ‘an old, single white guy from England who’s been travelling to or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years, mostly Pattaya Beach, until moving to Chiang Rai for a child bride who was about 12 years old at the time’.
He suggested Pattaya and Chiang Rai were hotspots of the child sex industry and added: ‘I ****ing hope he sues me.’ It is the latest in a series of strange outbursts by Mr Musk, including a statement he later retracted that Tesla would be made a private company, causing trading in its shares to be halted.
Mr Unsworth, a financial broker, splits his time between the UK and Thailand.
His sister Shirley O’Connor said her brother was travelling to Thailand and would only learn of Mr Musk’s latest slur when he arrived.
‘Vernon will wake up to this rubbish,’ she told MailOnline. She laughed at Musk’s latest allegation that he had a 12-year-old child bride. ‘I’ve met Woranan. She is charming. She is not a child.’
Mr Unsworth is being represented by US-based defamation lawyer Lucian Wood.
‘Musk can tweet his vindictive and vicious lie a hundred times and it will still be a lie,’ said Mr Wood.
‘Paedophilia is too serious an issue to leave unchallenged.’