From bodyguard to queen: Thai king announces surprise wedding

Thailand‘s King Maha Vajiralongkorn has married the deputy head of his personal guard force and gave her the title of queen just days before his official coronation.

The surprise announcement was carried in the Royal Gazette and footage from Wednesday’s wedding ceremony was shown on the nightly Royal News segment aired on all Thai television channels.

Thai television, which broadcast the royal order on Wednesday evening, showed a video of Queen Suthida prostrating herself before the king, to whom she, according to the announcer, presented a tray of flowers and joss sticks, and in return was bestowed traditional gifts associated with royal power.

Vajiralongkorn, 66, also known by the title King Rama X, became constitutional monarch after the death of his revered father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, in October 2016, after 70 years on the throne.

He is due to be officially crowned in elaborate Buddhist and Brahmin ceremonies on Saturday, followed by a procession through Bangkok the next day.

In 2014, Vajiralongkorn appointed Suthida Tidjai, a former flight attendant for Thai Airways, as a deputy commander of his bodyguard unit.

Some royal observers and foreign media had linked Suthida romantically with the king, but the palace had previously never acknowledged a relationship between them.

The king made Suthida a full general in the Royal Thai Army in December 2016, and the deputy commander of the king’s personal guard in 2017.

He also made her a Thanpuying, a royal title meaning Lady.

Among the dignitaries at the wedding were Prayuth Chan-ocha, the leader of the military government that has run Thailand since a 2014 army coup, as well as other members of the royal family and palace advisers, the wedding footage showed.

Vajiralongkorn has had three previous marriages and divorced his previous wife, with whom he has a son, in 2014.