Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Queen Sirikit, the mother of Thailand’s King Vajiralongkorn, has died aged 93.
She died “peacefully” in a Bangkok hospital at 9:21 pm local time (14:21 GMT) on Friday night, according to Thailand’s Royal Household Bureau.
Sirikit has “suffered several illnesses” while in hospital since 2019, including a blood infection this month, it added.
For more than six decades, Queen Sirikit was married to Thailand’s longest-reigning monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died in 2016.
Queen Sirikit suffered a stroke in 2012, after which she rarely appeared in public.
She met her future husband while studying music in Paris, where her father was stationed as the Thai ambassador to France.
The couple married on April 28, 1950, just a week before King Bhumibol was crowned in Bangkok.
As a young couple in the 1960s, Queen Sirikit and King Bhumibol traveled the world, meeting US presidents Dwight Eisenhower, the late Queen Elizabeth II, as well as Elvis Presley.
During that decade, she frequently made international best-dressed lists.
In 1980, Queen Sirikit appeared in a BBC documentary about the Thai monarchy called The Soul of a Nation.
In the rare interview, she said: “Thailand’s kings and queens have always been in close contact with the people and generally regard the king as the father of the nation.
“That’s why we don’t have much of a personal life because we consider ourselves the father and mother of the nation.
She was seen as a key maternal figure for the country, with her birthday celebrated as Mother’s Day.
