Secretive king strips his consort of her titles
Companion to the Thai monarch loses noble rank after showing ‘disloyalty’ to him and his queen
‘Sineenat’s behaviour disrespected the monarchy, and caused conflict among royal officials’
THAILAND’S king has stripped his 34-year-old consort of all royal and military titles last night, less than three months after she became the first woman to be anointed with the noble rank in nearly a century.
King Maha Vajiralongkorn announced via the Royal Gazette that Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi had been dismissed from the rank of Chao Khun Phra for “disloyalty”, as well as “acting against the appointment of the Queen [Suthida] … for her own ambitions.”
The king suddenly married Suthida Tidjai, a former flight attendant, shortly before his coronation in May. The new queen, the king’s fourth wife, had been deputy commander of his personal guard since 2017, but the palace had refused to acknowledge long-standing rumours of the romantic liaison before the monarch decided “to promote” her.
On his 67th birthday in July, King Vajiralongkorn decided to also appoint Ms Wongvajirapakdi as his consort, reviving a royal Thai tradition not used since King Rama VI, who ruled until 1925.
Her elevation was marked with the release of rare images, including candid action-packed photos of her aiming a weapon on a firing range, piloting a plane and preparing to parachute.
They were accompanied by a 46-page biography that revealed she was born in 1985 in Nan, north Thailand, and graduated from the Royal Thai army nursing college in 2008. She trained as a pilot and completed several military courses, including jungle warfare and night parachuting. Like Queen Suthida, she served in the royal bodyguard unit, recently reaching the rank of major general. The information was unusual in a country where the monarchy is deified and where strict lese majeste laws prevent open discussion about them.
But the royal consort appears to have fallen out of favour. Among the charges was her failure to respect royal traditions by trying to make herself equivalent to the queen, it said, and defying the royal couple. “Sineenat’s behaviour disrespected the monarchy, caused conflict among royal household officials and created misunderstanding among the public,” it added.
Vajiralongkorn became king in 2016 but the formal coronation was delayed until May this year.
Born in 1952, the only son of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Queen Sirikit, he was educated at private schools in Sussex and Somerset before military training in Australia and later becoming an officer in the Thai armed forces. The king has seven children by three ex-wives.