Thailand’s Queen Sirikit, iconic style figure, dies at 93

Thailand bids farewell to Queen Sirikit, a luminous figure who infused the monarchy with glamour and elegance in the postwar era and, in her later years, occasionally cast her influence into the political arena.

She passed away at the age of 93, the Thai Royal Household Bureau announced on Saturday, 25 October. Sirikit was the beloved mother of King Maha Vajiralongkorn and widow of the revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

According to a statement from the Thai Royal Household Bureau, she passed away peacefully at 21.21 local time (14.21 GMT) on Friday at a hospital in Bangkok. The Bureau said she had been suffering from several ailments during her long hospitalisation since 2019, including a blood infection this month.

Queen Sirikit had rarely been seen in public since suffering a debilitating stroke in 2012. Despite the efforts of her medical team, her condition deteriorated after developing the blood infection on 17 October, local media reported.

King Vajiralongkorn has directed the Royal Household Bureau to oversee her royal funeral. Her body will lie in state at the Dusit Thron Hall within Bangkok’s Grand Palace, where members of the royal family and the public are expected to pay their respects. The royal household also announced that the family will observe a year-long mourning period.

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has cancelled his planned trip to Malaysia for the ASEAN summit in the wake of the Queen Mother’s passing.

Born in Bangkok in 1932 into an aristocratic family, Sirikit Kitiyakara was the daughter of a diplomat. She met King Bhumibol Adulyadej in 1948 while studying music and languages in Paris, where her father was serving as Thailand’s ambassador to France. The couple married on 28 April 1950, just a week before Bhumibol’s coronation as King Rama IX of the Chakri dynasty.

For more than six decades, Queen Sirikit stood alongside King Bhumibol, Thailand’s longest-reigning monarch, as a symbol of stability and grace.

Together, they travelled extensively during the 1960s, meeting world leaders including US President Dwight Eisenhower, Queen Elizabeth II, and Elvis Presley. Her elegance and fashion sense frequently earned her a place on international best-dressed lists.

In a rare 1980 BBC documentary, Soul of a Nation, she reflected on her role within the Thai monarchy, describing how the King and Queen were regarded as the “father and mother of the nation,” leaving little room for private life.

Queen Sirikit was widely revered for her compassion and maternal image. Her birthday, 12 August, has been observed as Thailand’s Mother’s Day since 1976, a testament to her enduring bond with the Thai people.

Though she gradually withdrew from public life after her stroke in 2012, her presence continued to be felt through national commemorations and portraits displayed across the country.

During periods of political unrest, including the student-led protests of 2020 and 2021 that called for reforms to Thailand’s monarchy, public criticism was largely directed at the current king rather than his parents—a reflection of the deep respect many Thais continued to hold for the late royal couple.

Queen Sirikit is survived by her son, King Vajiralongkorn, and three daughters—Princess Ubolratana, Princess Sirindhorn, and Princess Chulabhorn.

Her death marks the end of a significant chapter in Thailand’s modern royal history, following King Bhumibol’s passing in 2016, which was met with a year of nationwide mourning.

For many Thais, Queen Sirikit will be remembered not only as a royal consort but also as a steadfast maternal figure whose life spanned the transformation of Thailand from a traditional monarchy into a modern constitutional state.

With agency inputs