A queen has passed away at the age of 93. A respected figure for her elegance and charitable commitment, she leaves behind decades of influence and dedication to the monarchy.
The Queen Mother of Thailand, Sirikit Kitiyakorn, has died at the age of 93, the Office of the Thai Royal Household announced Saturday. Wife of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who ruled Thailand for 70 years, she was the mother of the current monarch, Maha Vajiralongkorn, also known as Rama X. “Her Majesty’s health deteriorated until Friday, and she passed away at 9:21 p.m. at Chulalongkorn Hospital” in Bangkok, the palace said in a statement.
Sirikit had not appeared in public since suffering a stroke in 2012. “I had heard she wasn’t well, and since she was over 90, I knew this day would come I feel sad because she was a mother figure to the country, and now she’s gone,” a 53-year-old domestic worker named Sasis Putthasit told Paris Match in Bangkok.
Her husband, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, was Thailand’s longest-reigning monarch, occupying the throne for seven decades from 1946. She was by his side for most of this time, winning the hearts of the Thai people through her charitable work.
“The Most Beautiful Queen in the World”
During their travels abroad, she also captivated the international media with her beauty and fashion sense. General de Gaulle even considered her “the most beautiful queen in the world.” During a 1960 visit to the United States, which included a state dinner at the White House, Time magazine called her “svelte” and “arch-feminist.” The French daily L’Aurore described her as “ravishing.”
Born in 1932, the year Thailand transitioned from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy, Sirikit Kitiyakara was the daughter of the Thai ambassador to France and led a life of wealth and privilege. While studying music and languages in Paris, she met Bhumibol, who had spent part of his childhood in Switzerland. The couple spent time together in Paris and became engaged in 1949. They married in Thailand a year later, when she was only 17.
Ever elegant, Sirikit collaborated with French fashion designer Pierre Balmain to create remarkable outfits made from Thai silk. By championing the preservation of traditional weaving techniques, she helped revitalize Thailand’s silk industry. For more than four decades, she frequently accompanied the king to remote villages, promoting development projects designed to improve the lives of rural populations.
She briefly served as regent in 1956, when her husband spent two weeks in a temple studying to become a Buddhist monk, a common rite of passage in Thailand. In 1976, her birthday, August 12, became Mother’s Day and a national holiday.
Her son Rama X is the current monarch.
Her only son, now King Maha Vajiralongkorn (Rama X), succeeded Bhumibol after his death in 2016. At her coronation in 2019, Sirikit was officially given the title of Queen Mother.
In 1998, she used her birthday speech to urge Thais to unite behind then-Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai, dealing a fatal blow to opposition plans to force early elections. Later, she expressed sympathy for the royalist People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) movement, whose protests contributed to the fall of governments allied with former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a populist telecommunications magnate.
In 2008, Sirikit attended the funeral of a PAD protester killed during clashes with police—a gesture interpreted as royal support for the movement, which had helped overthrow a pro-Thaksin government a year earlier. For many Thais, she will be remembered for her charitable work and as a symbol of maternal virtue. Her passing will be greeted with great reverence in a country where any criticism of the monarchy remains tightly regulated by lèse-majesté laws, which provide for harsh prison sentences for insulting members of the royal family, even the deceased.
She is survived by her son, King Rama X, and her three daughters.
