The King of Thailand held a ceremony this week to promote one of his top generals and longtime girlfriends as his official mistress and royal concubine – a role that has been vacant since the early 1920s.
King Maha Vajiralongkorn, better known as King Rama X, named Major-General Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi as his official royal consort in a ceremony depicted below.
During the ceremony, which took place on Rama X’s 67th birthday, he awarded his new concubine Sineenat with four medals, including the Most Illustrious Order of Chula Chom Klao, 1st Class and the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant, Fox News reports.
General Suthida Vajiralongkorn, the King’s wife, was present for the ceremony as well.
Queen Suthida, who was a former consort and Thai Airways flight attendant, married the King in an official ceremony on May 1.
King Rama X has been married four times.
He married his first cousin Princess Soamsawali Kitiyakara in 1977 and had one child. That marriage ended in divorce, but not before Rama fathered five other children with Yuvadhida Polpraserth, who later became his second wife. They divorced in 2001. Then Rama X married his third wife, with whom he had one child before divorcing in 2014.
This is the first time that a Thai King has had more than one official partner since the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932.