Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi: Over 1,400 nude photos of Thai king's mistress leaked by 'hackers' amid rivalry with queen
Anti-monarchy activists in Thailand have reportedly received a trove of explicit nude pictures of the King's mistress in a bid to "sabotage" the royal consort, it has been claimed. Detractors of the royal family say they have more than 1,400 snaps of Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn's mistress - many of them naked or semi-naked, according to The Sun. The supposed leak of the highly "explicit" photos of Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi -- endearingly known as Koi -- is said to stem from a bitter rivalry between the King's mistress and the Queen. The news of the sultry snaps, some of which reportedly show Koi provocatively posing in the nude for the camera, comes after she returned to the royal harem after being dramatically expelled and imprisoned last year, per the report.
Previously accused of attempting to undermine the king's official wife and former consort, Queen Suthida, Koi was given back her royal and military titles this year. According to The Times, the pictures were sent to British journalist Andrew MacGregor Marshall, who has written several critical articles about the Thai monarchy. “The photographs are clearly from Koi's personal phones,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “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.”
Marshall said the 1,443 snaps were taken between 2012 and 2014, and that they include a number of selfies taken by Koi while topless and in skimpy nightwear. According to the report, the pictures were also sent to Thai academic Pavin Chachavalpongpun, who currently resides in Japan as he faces criminal prosecution in Thailand for his criticism of the royal family.
That said, the photos were delivered with a fake return address and a letter claimed they had been obtained by “pro-democracy Thai hackers," The Sun reported. “However this is almost certainly untrue,” added Marshall. “Koi's return was bitterly opposed by palace factions supporting Queen Suthida and Princess Bajrakitiyabha and it is highly probable the images of Koi were leaked in an effort to sabotage her return as Vajiralongkorn's consort.”
Sineenat was bestowed with the title of “Chao Khun Phra”, or royal noble consort, last July during a ceremony to mark the king's 67th birthday. According to The Sun, it was the first time in nearly a century that a Thai king had taken a consort, despite marrying his fourth wife Suthida just three months earlier. Nonetheless, Sineenat was also given four medals, including the "most noble order of the crown of Thailand" and the "most exalted order of the white elephant, special class."
Last October, however, the king issued a command rescinding Sineenat's appointment as his royal consort and sent her to prison. In a statement, the mistress was accused of being “dishonorable, lacking gratitude [and of] disobedience against the king and the queen." But at the end of August this year, the Thai Royal Gazette newspaper reported a bizarre twist that not only was Sineenat back in the royal fold but that she had never done anything wrong and records would not show she had ever lost her royal privileges.
Earlier in the year Sineenat had reportedly gone missing just days after the king brutally humiliated her in public.
In 2019, Thailand's King broke nearly a century-old tradition and officially anointed his mistress as a royal consort, the first time in the country's modern history that a monarch has acknowledged having an extramarital affair. In a televised ceremony on his 67th birthday, Vajiralongkorn, also known as 'Rama X', used ceremonial water to make his former bodyguard Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi, 34, his Chao Khun Phra, or 'Royal Noble Consort,' according to the Times.
During the service, Sineenat lay on the floor to remain lower than the king's feet, following Thai royal tradition, which dictates that the ruling king regarded as god-like and must sit higher than everyone else. The ceremony confirmed that this is the first time since 1932 that a Thai king has officially practiced polygamy.