“Since I was born, I have been a prince. What I feel ? It’s hard to explain what it feels like to be a fish when you’re a fish. Thousands of kilometers from Buckingham Palace, where Queen Elisabeth II has commanded the admiration and respect of the British since 1952, a completely different scenario has been brewing behind the gates of the Royal Palace in Bangkok since five years. On October 13, 2016, the King of Thailand, Bhumibol Adulyadej, breathed his last at the age of 88, leaving behind a battered people. Not only because the Thais had unparalleled confidence in their sovereign, they who have known only him in power for seventy years. But also and above all because his disappearance announces the ascension to the throne of his son, Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, whose sulphurous reputation is common knowledge.

It must be said that the latter has aroused suspicion among Thais for many years now. Born July 28, 1952, in Bangkok, the son of King Rama IX and Queen Sirikit Kitiyakara has always given way to his moods and his faithful eccentricities. While studying at the British private school Millfield School, receiving training at the Royal Military College in Duntroon, Australia, then starting a career as a fighter pilot in Thailand, Prince Vajiralongkorn displayed a certain instability. of which he hides nothing. Evidenced by this day when he decided to name his dog Fufu Marshal of the Air Force, his sumptuous evenings or the repeated weddings that punctuate his personal life. “I am the black sheep,” he warned even before taking the throne.

Four marriages and three divorces

Before succeeding his father, Prince Vajiralongkorn had several marriages that would prove to be resounding failures for everyone. The first, with Princess Soamsavali Kitiyakara, a first cousin on the maternal side, lasts only a few years, from 1977 to 1991. In the meantime, the one we will soon call Rama X has indeed fallen under the spell of an actress , Yuvadhida Polpraserth, with whom he will have five children. But their union was unhappy and the couple divorced in 1996. The young woman was then accused of adultery and was repudiated. The prince’s third wedding took place in 2001, with a dancer named Srirasmi Akharaphongpreecha. Here again, the idyll is short-lived and ends in a divorce in 2014. An instability which only confirms the distrust of the Thai people, especially as the latter will not be long in being once again outraged by the behavior. of the future king.

On May 1, 2019, after a year of national mourning following the death of King Rama IX and only three days before his coronation, Prince Vajiralongkorn married a former flight attendant, Suthida Tidjai, who would thus become the new queen consort of Thailand. King Rama X would he have decided to draw a line on his dissolute love stories? Nothing is less sure. As was the case for his previous unions, the sovereign soon grew tired of his companion and three months later, he made a military nurse, his royal concubine. In a country where polygamy has been banned since 1921, the scandal is total. But do not shake Rama X for all that.

Repeated escapades

Unlike his father who was known to be devoted to his people, Rama X prefers to indulge in more personal pleasures. Much to the chagrin of the Thais. Far from his country – he stays in Bavaria most of the time, the king relishes his passion for aviation. Crowned head the most fortunate in the world with 45 billion euros to his credit, he indeed owns two Boeing 737s that he prints whenever he sees fit, while he exercises a sumptuous life in his imposing home near Lake Starnberg. , south of Munich. For the rest, it is difficult to know more about the sovereign’s schedule, feared by many in Thailand. There, the crime of lese majesté is indeed one of the most reprimanded and can be worth a prison sentence of several years to anyone who dares to desecrate the image of the king or that of his family.

However, in 2020, the German press is indignant and chooses to lift the veil on its daily life. As Thailand, like a majority of countries, is plunged into an unprecedented health crisis in the face of the coronavirus epidemic, King Rama X goes into exile once again and finds refuge in the luxurious four-star Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl, in Bavaria. Tenth ruler of the Chakri dynasty – reigning dynasty in Thailand – he leads an uninhibited life with his harem, made up of around twenty young Thai women confined and sometimes drugged. For his people, this is too much. Despite threats hovering around the crime of lese majesté, hundreds of Thais are expressing their anger on social media with a hashtag: “Why do we need a king? ” In vain. Since 2021, if the King of Thailand is more visible in Bangkok with his wife Suthida, he never forgot what made his fame: his repeated extravagances.