Andrew MacGregor Marshall
ANALYSIS-Even by the standards of Thailand's mad King Vajiralongkorn, who is notorious for flying into rages and destroying people who were formerly close to him, the rise and fall of Sineenat "Koi" Wongvajirapakdi was shockingly fast and brutal.
Koi's former name is Niramon Ounprom, นิรมล อุ่นพรม in Thai, and she previously worked as a nurse at the army's Ananda Mahidol Hospital.
She entered royal service to look after Vajiralongkorn's son Prince Dipangkorn, but soon became one of the king's harem.
After Vajiralongkorn divorced his third wife Srirasmi in 2014 and jailed most of her relatives, he started spending most of his time with his main mistress Suthida Tidjai, a former flight attendant with Thai Airways. But as usual with the king, as soon as Suthida became his main woman, he got bored and started his time with Koi instead.
Koi has been involved in several controversial episodes with Vajiralongkorn.
On June 10, 2016, she was filmed with Vajiralongkorn at the Riem Arcaden mall in Munich, with both of them dressed in revealing clothing and fake tattoos. After I shared video of this episode, the Thai junta tried to force Facebook to block all content deemed damaging to the monarchy, but eventually backed down.
On December 26, 2016, Koi was photographed doing some kind of ritual semi-naked at the Rama V statue in Bangkok.
On April 25, 2017, Koi and Vajiralongkorn were photographed in strange clothing at another German mall, the Segmüller furniture store in Pasdorf near Munich. Vajiralongkorn was wearing another crop top, but this time with no fake tattoos.
In April this year, Vajiralongkorn and Koi were photographed wearing crop tops yet again, this time while they were waiting to board a cable car at Germany’s highest mountain, the Zugspitze.
In May this year, the king promoted her to the rank of Major General in the army. She had previously held the rank of Colonel .
On Vajiralongkorn's birthday on July 28 this year, he promoted Koi to the special aristocratic rank เจ้าคุณ, or Noble Royal Consort. Koi is only the second woman in Thailand's history to receive this rank since the Rama V era.
The ceremony was an explicit acknowledgement that Koi is a concubine of a king, and marked a return to official royal polygamy in Thailand after nearly a century in which Thai kings abandoned the tradition of having a large harem and adopted the Western cultural norm of monogamy.
Now, just three months later, Koi has been stripped of her royal ranks, and her safety is in doubt.
Just a few days ago she was photographed with the royal Chit Arsa civilian volunteer force. Since then, she must have done something to displease the king, and her life is now destroyed.
When will the king's allies learn that this fate could happen to any of them any time? The king is mentally unstable and sadistic, and anyone who comes close to him risks being crushed without warning.
As for the women who risk getting close to the king, Benz was exiled, Srirasmi is in house arrest, Koi is now disgraced. Soamsawali was humiliated but escaped worse consequences because she is a niece of Queen Sirikit.