Renowned beauty queen, actress, VJ and model, Metinee Kingpayome Sharples was born in the US in 1972 and raised in the New York borough of Queens. The eldest of four children and the only girl, she was the first of her siblings to return to Thailand in 1992. “I was trying for a modelling break in the United States,” the 48-year-old explains, “but in those days my Asian ethnicity was actually hampering me from getting jobs so I decided to try my luck in Thailand.” It proved to be a smart move and that same year she entered and won the Miss Thailand World beauty pageant, which led to her representing the country at the Miss World pageant in Sun City, South Africa, where she was crowned Continental Queen of Asia and Oceania.
The recognition from these successes catapulted the young Metinee into the public spotlight back home and soon she was being hailed as Thailand’s first…
