The King of Thailand Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun has celebrated his 71st birthday in style.
Earlier today the king, who is the wealthiest monarch in the world thanks to his £24billion fortune, granted an audience during a royal ceremony at the Amarindra Winitchai Throne Hall in the Grand Palace, Bangkok.
In the grounds of the capital’s Grand Palace well-wishers wore yellow and celebrated their beloved king’s birthday.
Also in the Sanam Luang grounds Thai royal guards fired artillery guns, and Thai caretaker Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha led his cabinet and government officials in saluting to the portrait of Vajiralongkorn during a ceremony for taking the oath of allegiance to become lawful civil servants.
The 71-year-old king has seven children by three previous marriages, all of which ended in divorce. Princess Bajrakitiyabha is the only one of King Vajiralongkorn born to his first wife Princess Soamsawali.
At the lavish ceremony were the King’s sister Princess Chulabhorn Srisavangavadhana, the King’s second sister Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, the King’s daughter Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana and Queen Suthida. His daughter Princess Bajrakitiyabha did not appear present.
Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun granting an audience during a royal ceremony to mark his 71st birthday at the Amarindra Winitchai Throne Hall in the Grand Palace. Bangkok
Thai Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana (left) and Thai Queen Suthida (right) attending a royal ceremony to mark the Thai King’s 71st birthday
Well-wishers dressed in yellow and holding images of the king attend the birthday celebrations late into the evening in Bangkok
King Vajiralongkorn has banished his first four male heirs from their homeland after he accused their mother Sujarinee Vivacharawongse of adultery in 1996.
In December last year Princess Bajrakitiyabha, 44, was running during a military dog training session when she collapsed and lost consciousness in the Khao Yai National Park in the Nakhon Ratchasima province, central Thailand.
The princess, who was being lined up as the successor to her father, had suffered a heart attack and was airlifted from the Pack Chong Nana Hospital to the King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital in Bangkok.
The latest palace statement published in January this year said the princess suddenly lost consciousness due to bacteria that affected her heart. There has not been further updates since.
Princess Bajrakitiyabha, 44, (pictured in 2017) was reportedly running with her dogs when she collapsed in the Khao Yai National Park in the Nakhon Ratchasima province, central Thailand
Thailand’s Princess Sirivannavari (left) and Queen Suthida (right) look out from the Royal motorcade as it makes its way to the Grand Palace during celebrations
Thai Princess Chulabhorn Srisavangavadhana (L), Thai Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn (2-L), Thai Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana (2-R) and Thai Queen Suthida (R) attending a royal ceremony to mark the Thai King’s 71st birthday. His daughter Princess Bajrakitiyabha did not appear present
In celebration of the King, Thais participated in The Bureau of the Royal Household’s nationwide meditation campaign which started on July 19 and ended this morning, on the monarch’s birthday.
In the run-up to today, the Thai royal family and their representatives took part in celebratory gestures such as releasing cows, birds and aquatic animals at Tha Wasukri in Dusit District, Bangkok, on July 13.
This tradition is aimed at demonstrating the King’s respect and care for his people and animals.
On the king’s birthday, offices, banks and businesses are closed. The population pay their respects to the monarch and demonstrate their devotion to him by committing acts of merit and kindness.
The Thai monarchy is backed by the arch-royalist military, which has staged more than a dozen coups since the end of absolutism in 1932.
While the country has been roiled by decades of political turmoil, the constitution says the monarchy must be held ‘in a position of revered worship.’
Vajiralongkorn succeeded to the throne in 2016 after the death of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who had reigned since 1946.
The new king was not formally crowned until May 2019 when carried on a golden platform in a six-and-a-half-hour procession through Bangkok.
During the ceremony he was carried on a golden platform in a spectacular six-and-a-half-hour procession through Bangkok’s historic quarter.
Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun (left) greeting his younger sister Thai Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn (right) during the royal birthday ceremony
Thai caretaker Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha leads his cabinet and government officials in the salute to the portrait of Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun during a ceremony for taking the oath of allegiance to become lawful civil servants
Military officials hold Thai flags during a ceremony commemorating the Thai King
Thai caretaker Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha prays as he give morning alms to monks during celebrations
Thai royal guards fire artillery guns in salute to celebrate the King’s big day
Buddhist monks receive alms from devotees during a ceremony to celebrate the king’s birthday
Just days before the coronation, the King married his long-term consort and gave her the title Queen Suthida, in a surprise move.
Suthida Vajiralongkorn na Ayudhya, a former Thai Airways flight attendant, had to lie on the floor as she was given a gift by the king during the marriage ceremony.
In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Vajiralongkorn is said to have spent much of his time with an entourage of ‘sex soldiers’ at the Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl in the German resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
Reports said the king had booked out the whole fourth floor which includes a ‘pleasure room’ and is decked out with ‘treasures and antiques’ from Thailand.
His ‘sex soldiers’ are said to be assembled as a military unit called the SAS like Britain’s special forces – with the same motto, ‘who dares wins’.
One hotel worker said staff are forbidden from the fourth floor where the king and his entourage have set up camp.
However, the king’s diplomatic immunity means that there is little German authorities can do about it.
Queen Suthida reportedly spends most of her time at Hotel Waldegg in Engelberg, Switzerland, without her husband.
The king is protected from criticism in Thailand by one of the world’s toughest defamation laws, with prison sentences up to 15 years.
A Thai well-wisher dressed in yellow holds up a photo of Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Thai Queen Suthida on the royal grounds of Sanam Luang
King Maha Vajiralongkorn pictured on his extravagant gold throne as he grants an audience
The King pictured in his throne during the public greeting at the Grand Palace
Thai royal guards prepare to fire artillery guns to salute during celebrations earlier today
Thai caretaker Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha (L) gives morning alms to monks during celebrations
Thai caretaker Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha (C) leads his cabinet and government officials in the salute to the portrait of the Thai King
Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn (right) and Queen Suthida during their wedding ceremony in Bangkok. According to tradition, the King has a semi-divine status and must be seated higher than those around him
In 2021 the king made history by making his mistress Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi the country’s second queen, despite previously jailing her for ‘disrespecting’ the current queen.
The pair wore matching blue coats as they released fish and birds in a Buddhist ceremony to mark her birthday at Wasukri pier in Bangkok.
It’s an astonishing rise for the king’s royal consort who was thrown out of the palace and jailed for trying to block her rival Queen Suditha’s coronation in 2019.
A month prior to this a trove of naked selfies said to be taken by Sineenat were leaked online, revealing the bitter infighting which still rages at court among the king’s harem of mistresses.
Just three months prior to Sineenat’s imprisonment she had been appointed Vajiralongkorn’s royal consort – the first to hold the title in almost a century.
For a long time her whereabouts were unknown, rumoured to either be in jail or dead.
Civil servants pay their respects before the portrait of Thailand’s King
King Maha Vajiralongkorn, 68, crowned Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi as his second queen
In 2021 the king made history by making his mistress Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi the country’s second queen
She was fully reinstated as his consort in September 2021 and the Royal Gazette declared that she ‘is not tarnished’.
The former nurse ascended to the pinnacle of courtly status in a deep humiliation for 42-year-old Queen Suditha.
Sineenat is seen as a ‘PR tool’ and her appointment as Thailand’s second queen came at a tense political juncture for the king who has faced months of protests.
The people have demanded reform of the monarchy – unprecedented in Thailand where it is illegal to criticise the king – with thousands taking to the streets for months, in spite of the pandemic.
Prior to her expulsion from the court, Sineenat appeared frequently in photo shoots, flying in war planes, skydiving, shooting and others showing intimate moments with the king holding hands.
Royal experts believe her prominence in public life may have been the reason for 1,400 selfies being leaked to critics of Vajiralongkorn earlier in 2021.
Some showed her baring her unshaven armpits to the camera and others revealed ‘every single thing that you could imagine,’ according to one Thai activist.
