Thai king brings back royal consort after ousting her for ‘undermining’ his official wife

Thailand’s king has reconciled with his royal consort, whom he stripped of her titles last year after accusing her of seeking to undermine his wife, the queen.

The restoration of Sineenatra Wongvajirabhakdi to the good graces of King Maha Vajiralongkorn was confirmed by an official announcement published in the country’s Royal Gazette.

She had disappeared from public view after her fall from grace last year, and her whereabouts were never made clear by the Thai authorities.

The king first gave Ms Sineenatra the royal consort title last July – reviving an old palace tradition of taking a “junior” wife that had not been practised for almost a century.

Less than three months after choosing his royal consort, the king issued a command rescinding the appointment and accusing her of being “ungrateful” by conducting a rivalry with Queen Suthida.

In a statement, he also accused her of actively seeking to block Suthida Vajiralongkorn Na Ayudhya’s appointment as his queen in May 2019 in order to take the position herself.

Ms Sineenatra’s fall had been particularly shocking because only two months earlier, a palace website released scores of photos of her and the king holding hands, unusually intimate photos for members of the royal family.

Both Queen Suthida, 42, and Ms Sineenatra, 35, have served as senior officers in palace security units. Queen Suthida was previously a flight attendant with Thai Airways, while Ms Sineenatra was an army nurse.

Wednesday’s announcement said she had been given back both her royal and military titles. The statement claimed that the record should show that the “stripping” of these titles had “never taken place”.

The king formally assumed the throne last May after the 2016 death of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who reigned for 70 years.

The 68-year-old king has seven children by three previous marriages, all of which ended in divorce. He spends much of the year in Germany.

In March, the German tabloid Bild reported that the king had been self-isolating in a luxury hotel in the Alpine resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen with a “harem” of 20 concubines.

The announcement about the royal consort comes as anti-government protesters have called for curbs to newly expanded powers of the king – breaking a strong taboo in a nation where conservative tradition upholds the monarch as above criticism.

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