Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn often makes headlines for controversial reasons. In March, it was because he had gone into “isolation” in a German luxury hotel in the Alps with a harem of 20 women. Now, amid mass unrest in Thailand over the status of the monarchy, nude photos of the king’s alleged mistress have leaked in what is suspected to be an act of royal revenge porn.
Over 1,400 photos of Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi taken from her phone have been leaked in a seeming act of “revenge porn”, a year after she was accused of disloyalty and stripped of her title of “Royal Noble Consort”. Wongvajirapakdi was accused of conducting a rivalry with Queen Suthida. Her titles were later restored as the government’s Royal Gazette stated that she was “untainted”.
King Vajiralongkorn was crowned monarch in 2019 after taking the throne in 2016 following the death of his father, who reigned for 70 years. He married the deputy head of his personal bodyguard, Suthida Tiidjai, and two months later, conferred the total of Royal Noble Consort to Wongvajirapakdi.
She spent ten months in a correctional facility before being released from detention in September.
Wongvajirapakdi was reportedly airlifted out of the facility to meet with Vajiralongkorn in Germany, where he spends much of his time, prior to being pardoned. The leak of over 1,400 selfies, many sexually explicit, and taken from her phone, coincides with her return to the palace. The act is suspected to have been performed on behalf of the Queen’s loyalists, who opposes Wongvajirapakdi’s return to the royal court.
The photos were sent to a journalist known to be critical of the monarchy, Andrew MacGregor Marshall. In a Facebook post, Marshall wrote of the images: 'Most of the images are photographs she took of herself, and dozens of them are very explicit."
"It seems probable that she had taken these explicit photographs of herself to send to Vajiralongkorn... and that the images of Koi (Ms Sineenat's nickname) were leaked in an effort to sabotage her return as Vajiralongkorn's consort."
Pro-democracy protests have been raging for five months in Thailand as activists call to reform the monarchy and reduce the powers of King Vajiralongkorn.
