Princess daughter of Thailand’s playboy king is on life support after suffering a heart attack

The princess daughter of Thailand‘s playboy king is on life support after suffering a heart attack while jogging with her dogs.

Princess Bajrakitiyabha, 44, was running during a military dog training session when she collapsed and lost consciousness in the Khao Yai National Park in the Nakhon Ratchasima province, central Thailand, last night.

The princess, who was being lined up as the successor to her father King Maha Vajiralongkorn, was airlifted from the Pack Chong Nana Hospital to the King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital in Bangkok in the early hours of this morning.

Princess Bajrakitiyabha, 44, (pictured in 2017) was reportedly running with her dogs when she collapsed in the Khao Yai National Park in the Nakhon Ratchasima province, central Thailand, last night

Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun (centre) is accompanied by Thai Queen Suthida (right) and his daughter Princess Bajrakitiyabha (left) in Bangkok in 2019

Medics are keeping her alive with a life-support machine and the Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has flown back early from an overseas trip. 

Thai royal expert Andrew MacGregor Marshall, an author and lecturer, said the prognosis was ‘very grim’ and that the monarchy – which punishes critics with prison – could be thrown into chaos.

MacGregor claimed the incident has ‘huge repercussions’ for the Thai monarchy as Princess Bajrakitiyabha was being lined up as the successor to controversial ‘crop top king’ Vajiralongkorn.

The king has sparked controversy after it emerged that he spent much of the coronavirus pandemic in Germany with a reputed entourage of ‘sex soldiers’ assembled as a military unit at a four-star hotel. 

The 70-year-old king has seven children by three previous marriages, all of which ended in divorce. Princess Bajrakitiyabha is the only one of King Vajiralongkorn born to his first wife Princess Soamsawali. 

King Vajiralongkorn has banished his first four male heirs from their homeland after he accused their mother Sujarinee Vivacharawongse of adultery in 1996. 

MacGregor said: ‘Princess Bajrakitiyabha was initially taken to Pak Chong Nana Hospital where CPR was attempted for hours without success. King Vajiralongkorn rushed to the hospital in a military helicopter.

‘Royal sources say the prognosis for the princess is very grim and it’s very unlikely she will ever recover. But she could potentially be kept artificially alive via ECMO for weeks or even months while the regime figures out what to do.

‘These events have huge repercussions for the Thai monarchy because it was assumed Bajrakitiyabha would be the next monarch or would be regent for her younger half-brother Dipangkorn who has autism and will not be able to reign alone.’

Residents living in the north of Bangkok reported hearing helicopters in the early hours of the morning. They are said to have been one helicopter carrying the stricken princess flanked by two military helicopters.

Thailand’s Princess Bajrakitiyabha (left) and Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana take part in a royal barge river procession in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2019

The Thai palace has not commented on the alleged incident and pliant local media outlets have censored reports on it.

The Thai monarchy is backed by the arch-royalist military, which has staged more than a dozen coups since the end of absolutism in 1932.

While the country has been roiled by decades of political turmoil, the constitution says the monarchy must be held ‘in a position of revered worship.’

Vajiralongkorn succeeded to the throne in 2016 after the death of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who had reigned since 1946.

The new king was not formally crowned until May 2019 when carried on a golden platform in a six-and-a-half-hour procession through Bangkok.

During the ceremony he was carried on a golden platform in a spectacular six-and-a-half-hour procession through Bangkok’s historic quarter.

Just days before the coronation, the King married his long-term consort and gave her the title Queen Suthida, in a surprise move.

Suthida Vajiralongkorn na Ayudhya, a former Thai Airways flight attendant, had to lie on the floor as she was given a gift by the king during the marriage ceremony.

In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Vajiralongkorn is said to have spent much of his time with an entourage of ‘sex soldiers’ at the Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl in the German resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

Reports said the king had booked out the whole fourth floor which includes a ‘pleasure room’ and is decked out with ‘treasures and antiques’ from Thailand.

Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn (right) and Queen Suthida during their wedding ceremony in Bangkok. According to tradition, the King has a semi-divine status and must be seated higher than those around him

His ‘sex soldiers’ are said to be assembled as a military unit called the SAS like Britain’s special forces – with the same motto, ‘who dares wins’.

One hotel worker said staff are forbidden from the fourth floor where the king and his entourage have set up camp.

However, the king’s diplomatic immunity means that there is little German authorities can do about it.

Queen Suthida reportedly spends most of her time at Hotel Waldegg in Engelberg, Switzerland, without her husband.

The king is protected from criticism in Thailand by one of the world’s toughest defamation laws, with prison sentences up to 15 years.