From fake tattoos and crop tops to making a poodle Air Force chief – the King of Thailand’s maddest moments revealed
As Thai monarch Maha Vajiralongkorn attempts to sue Facebook over photos posted online, we look at the wacky royal's bizarre life
STROLLING in a German shopping centre, covered in tattoos and wearing a preposterous yellow crop top, the scruffy guy looked about as far from royalty as you could imagine.
But this scantily-clad man is actually the king of Thailand — and he does not want you to see these pictures.
Thai officials ordered that the snaps of King Maha Vajiralongkorn be wiped from the web by 10am today — though they are still on show.
The wacky monarch is even threatening to sue Facebook over the shots, taken last July by a passer-by who recognised the king.
The images, which appear to show 64-year-old Maha out for a stroll with a girlfriend while wearing fake tattoo “sleeves”, fall foul of Thailand’s extremely strict law of “lese-majeste” — or insulting royalty.
The crime is punishable by 15 years’ jail in Thailand. The Worldwide Movement for Human Rights, a global federation of human rights organisations, says 105 people have been arrested under the law in the past three years.
But the king’s bizarre dress sense is just the tip of the iceberg for this very different monarch.
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Indeed, his string of failed marriages and apparently insatiable appetite for women — his own mother Queen Sirikit branded him a womaniser — has had Thais quietly gossiping for years.
During a 1982 trip to the US, Sirikit said: “My son, the Crown Prince, is a little bit of a Don Juan. He is a good student, a good boy, but women find him interesting and he finds women even more interesting.”
Maha has ruled Thailand since the death last year of his father King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who had ruled for 70 years and was married to Sirikit for 66 of those years.
But in stark contrast to his father, Maha has been married and divorced three times.
In 1977 he married his first wife — his cousin, Princess Soamsawali Kitiyakara.
They had a daughter, Bajrakitiyabha, but the relationship was doomed from the start.
During the marriage Maha fathered four sons and a daughter with his mistress, actress Yuvadhida Polpraserth. They began living together but his wife refused to divorce him.
Finally, in 1993, he sued for divorce, laying the blame for the failed relationship entirely at Soamsawali’s feet.
She was unable to challenge him, due to the strict laws which prohibit criticism of the monarchy, so the divorce was finalised.
He married Yuvadhida the following year but after a mysterious bust-up two years later, she fled to the UK to escape her husband.
Livid Maha ordered posters to be placed all around his palace accusing her of adultery with a 60-year-old Thai air marshal.
The prince then had his daughter brought back to Thailand. His four sons say they were banned from returning by their father.
In a letter written in 2011 they said: “We were ordered by our father not to return home to Thailand. We were afraid to risk even demonstrating the slightest inference of disrespect toward the Royal Family.”
In 2001 the king married his third wife — former waitress Srirasmi Suwadee, who had been in his service since 1992.
He kept the marriage secret from the public until 2005, when she gave birth to their son, Prince Dipangkorn Rasmijoti.
Maha even told a magazine it was his intention to settle down.
The pair bought a poodle, Foo Foo, which Maha became devoted to in a way that even the most ardent dog lover would find extreme.
He made it an Air Chief Marshal in the Royal Thai Air Force and the dog appeared at official functions dressed in a dinner jacket.
In 2007 Foo Foo was a guest at a reception held by the US Ambassador Ralph Boyce.
In a leaked document, Mr Boyce said: “Foo Foo was present at the event, dressed in formal evening attire complete with paw mitts.
“At one point during the band’s second number, he jumped up on to the head table and began lapping from the guests’ water glasses, including my own.
“The Air Chief Marshal’s antics drew the full attention of the 600-plus audience members, and remains the talk of the town to this day.”
Foo Foo hit the headlines once again when a video from its birthday party surfaced online.
It appears to show topless Srirasmi lying on the floor in just a G-string, feeding cake to the dog.
She sings Happy Birthday to it before getting on her hands and knees and eating from the same bowl as Foo Foo.
When the dog died in 2015 Maha gave it a four-day funeral complete with Buddhist rites before it was cremated in a lavish ceremony.
A year earlier he divorced Srirasmi, stripped her royal titles and exiled her to an undisclosed location in Thailand — with a reported settlement of £4.5million.
He then jailed her parents for two-and-a-half years for “royal defamation”.
Maha is now romantically linked to an air hostess Suthida Vajiralongkorn na Ayudaya, 41, nicknamed Nui.
The palace has never confirmed the relationship, but she is referred to as the king’s consort by international media.
Maha has recently promoted her to the rank of General in the King’s Guard, the first woman to reach such a rank in the Thai forces.
The king was previously pictured at a German airport with Nui while he was also dressed in a white crop top with fake tattoos on his arms and chest.
But Nui is not without competition. The playboy king has also been linked to former nurse Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi — the woman seen with him in the German shopping centre last year.
Sineenat, nicknamed Koi, is reportedly becoming the king’s favourite.
Before he became king, Maha spent most of his time outside Thailand — mainly at his lakeside villa just outside Munich, which is worth 12 million euro.
He can often be seen speeding around the German countryside in a white Porsche 911 Turbo, or out shopping dressed in skimpy clothes.
His European links stretch back to his school days, which were also controversial.
He went to King’s Mead School in Seaford, East Sussex, then posh boarding school Millfield in Somerset.
He was so pampered as a child that he once admitted to an interviewer he could not tie his own shoelaces aged 12 because courtiers had always done it for him.
At school Maha was known to be tubby and clumsy, suffering from a violent facial twitch. He reportedly ate alone at meal times.
But the young prince also had a darker side. According to fellow pupils he would repeatedly wake others in his dormitory by cackling loudly at night and would bully other boys.
His father, King Bhumibol, was extremely popular in Thailand, where he was treated like a god.
The same cannot be said for Maha, who is — privately, of course — loathed by the public and therefore rules through fear.
Reports by Wikileaks in 2011 revealed that many in the inner government would have preferred one of Maha’s younger sisters to take the throne upon the death of King Bhumibol — but Thai law forbids a female monarch.
Experts are worried that his reign could deepen a period of instability in Thailand which has included two coups and anti-government protests.
Journalist Andrew MacGregor Marshall used to work in Thailand, but had to flee the country after publishing stories which did not reflect well on the monarchy.
He has not returned since, in case he is jailed for breaking the country’s strict laws.
He said: “If the Royal Family in the UK behaved like this we would have every right to criticise and laugh at them.
“Imagine if Prince Charles was spotted walking around in a crop top with fake tattoos on. We would never stop talking about it.
“But people in Thailand are silenced. Sure, they gossip in private, but on the face of it they have to pretend this man is basically a living deity.”