Per the royal statement, the king “has decided to promote General Suthida Vajiralongkorn Na Ayudhya, his royal consort, to become Queen Suthida and she will hold royal title and status as part of the royal family.”

AD

Vajiralongkorn, 66, is hardly the first royal to marry a commoner. The duchesses of Cambridge and Sussex (also known as Kate and Meghan) are both commoners, and so, too, was Michiko Shoda, who became empress when Japanese Emperor Akihito, who abdicated the throne earlier this week, married her in 1959. (While Akihito and the new emperor, Naruhito, were allowed to marry commoners and remain royal, the same cannot be said for the women in the Japanese royal family; Princess Ayako gave up her title to marry a commoner in 2018.)

AD

But Suthida’s story is somewhat different. The king, who has been married and divorced three times, made her deputy commander of his bodyguard unit in 2014 when he was still crown prince. In 2016, she was made a full general. In 2017, she was made deputy commander of the personal guard that he was now due as king.

And while their romantic relationship has been rumored for a while, it became public only when the king announced that he had married her, making her his fourth wife and queen.

AD